


Joyride

by de_la_cruz87



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Summer School, Underage Drinking, devilish boys, joyriding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2020-11-27 04:37:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20942399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/de_la_cruz87/pseuds/de_la_cruz87
Summary: Maybe this was why he and Monty didn’t spend time alone. Together, they burned each other down to ash.~Justin and Monty attend summer school in the summer before Hannah's suicide.(Inspired by Monty and his glasses)





	1. 1

Justin knew he had him the moment he walked into the classroom.

He didn’t bother to hide the lopsided smile that dimpled his cheek and announced his amusement, even as the other boy turned his face away, colour blooming beneath his freckles and his teeth rasping harshly over his lower lip as he muttered a rough curse.

“Fuck.”

Justin weaved between the desks, dodging around a backpack slung from a shoulder and two girls passing a phone between them. Tossing his duffel carelessly beneath the desk, he slid into the seat beside the other boy. With a grin, he propped his elbow on the desk and his head in his hand, his drawl equal parts glee and ridicule.

“Hey, Monty.”

“Fuck you, Foley,” Monty bit back immediately, his hurt pride sending his voice pitchy and a few octaves louder than he had probably intended.

“Language, Mr de la Cruz, if you don’t mind?”

Monty glanced at the teacher, not looking particularly inclined to apologise, but she had already returned her attention to the blackboard, scrawling out fractions and formulas in narrow, spidery strokes and curves. Justin barely managed to swallow down a chuckle, watching the other boy steadfastly avoid his gaze, copying down the equations in neat, looping handwriting that didn’t look like it should belong to him at all, although the pressure on the pen – nearly enough to tear through the paper – betrayed that familiar fury whipping an inferno barely below the surface. Even as Justin continued to cast him sidelong looks while he unpacked his books, Monty focussed with anger-fuelled determination on the math problems, as if he had a single clue what to do with any of them – like that and being here would make any sense at all. 

Justin complained about having to sign up to summer school, but the truth was he’d rather be at Liberty than at home. He didn’t have the cash to spend every other damn day catching classic movies at the Crestmont with Zach, and he wasn’t even in the same universe of the good fortune that had taken Bryce and whichever chick he was dating for the time being to his grandparents’ Hamptons beach house. Jess was going to be away most of the summer, road tripping with her family in Florida, and that left a sum total of zero places for Justin to be, so he might as well be here. 

Flicking open his dog-eared exercise book, Justin couldn’t help one more dig.

“It’s just that-“ he paused, waited for Monty to slant a frustrated look in his direction before choking on a laugh. “-you look too smart with those on to need this shit, dude.”

It had been the wrong thing to say – or the exact right thing, seeing as how a reaction was what he’d been aiming for. Monty’s face screwed up in a scowl a half second before he leaned over and corked Justin’s leg, forcing a yelp from the other boy between giggles. Justin rubbed his thigh with one hand and covered his grin with the other while Monty settled back into his seat, anger and embarrassment colouring his ears pink as he pushed the plastic rimmed glasses – the source of Justin’s uncontainable amusement, dislodged slightly as he’d lunged sideways to attack the other boy – back up to the bridge of his nose. 

“Mr Foley, I don’t think you’ll find it very funny if you’re still on academic probation when classes go back,” the teacher suggested in a chiding tone over her shoulder, identifying the culprit behind the barely stifled sniggering without having to turn to look. “No basketball… no football…”

“No, I know,” Justin agreed, trying to school his features into a serious frown, busying his hands with straightening out the books on his desk. “I’m good. I’m here to work.”

Obediently, he opened his math book, although he did not consult the page number written and underlined at the corner of the board and selected a page at random, then began to search for a pen. After patting the pockets of his letterman jacket and digging in the pockets of his jeans and coming up empty, Justin leaned over to dig through his bag, rifling through spare socks, crumpled test papers, a long strip of condom packets, empty snack packaging and, as he discovered when he lifted it to his nose for a curious sniff, an unwashed Liberty Tigers tee from his last workout.

“Dude,” he whispered at Monty, barely smothering an amused grin at the way the other boy’s jaw clenched. “Dude-“

“What?” 

Justin nodded at the backpack under his desk.

“Can I borrow a pen?”

Monty looked like he was considering giving him the pen clenched in his fist by thrusting it into his eye socket. He glanced at the teacher, who had stepped aside to help a girl sitting at the front of the class find the correct page number, then with reluctance that made his movements seem mechanical, leaned down to find a spare pen in his backpack.

“Thanks, man,” Justin smiled when Monty slapped the pen down on his desk. He set about scrawling down the equations from the board, and didn’t notice the curious glance that the other boy slid in his direction.


	2. 2

The cafeteria was closed during the summer and Monty normally brought lunch anyway, despite the shit the other guys gave him for it, like there was anything he could do about it if he wanted to, so they sat at a table overlooking the back quad. Monty dumped a sandwich, an apple and a granola bar out of a crumpled brown paper sack, reaching to catch the apple before it rolled off of the edge of the table. He had put the glasses away somewhere when they had packed up their books at the end of class – Justin hadn’t seen what he’d done with them – and now he leered at the other boy as he slid his bag beneath the table.

“So c’mon, tell me,” he prodded, grinning when Monty huffed an irritated sigh. “What’s up with the glasses?”

Monty frowned, tearing unceremoniously at the plastic wrap securing what looked like a hastily prepared ham and cheese sandwich. Justin wondered if the other boy had made it himself. It certainly looked like the slapped together kind of effort Monty put into most things he did, even the way it was cut was lopsided. 

“My dad’s pissed I’m here so I can only work weekends this summer.” He took a bite of the sandwich and spoke around it. “He won’t pay me unless I show up here every day each week. Ran out of contacts and can’t see shit without them, so…” he trailed off and shrugged, then glanced at Justin’s fidgeting hands as he took another bite. “You on a fuckin’ diet or something?”

Justin laughed, looking away across the quad, where a few kids from the track team were stretching and running relays.

“Nah, man. I got so fucked up last night, don’t think I could keep anything down.”

Monty snorted.

“Weak,” he commented, shoving the last of the sandwich into his mouth. 

Justin watched the other boy reach for the second half of his sandwich. He didn’t spend a lot of time with Monty. Not because they weren’t friends – they were, of sorts, brought together by the gravitational pull of Bryce Walker – but because being friends with Monty was hard. Maintaining his friendship wasn’t the difficult part. Actually, it was almost frustratingly easy. Like an old dog, it didn’t matter how hard or how many times you kicked Monty, he would wait around the edges, quiet and careful to keep out of your way, licking his wounds until he thought it was safe to try to return to your side, and even then, if rebuffed, he’d just give it a little more time and try again. It was weathering his friendship that was the hard part – aside from the constant barrage of taunts and gay jokes, his sometimes-idiotic questions and assumptions, and his constant need for approval and validation, his fuse was almost exactly non-existent, his temper capable of flaring from zero to nuclear at the slightest provocation, and he could always be relied upon to respond with violence, even if it was completely inappropriate in the circumstances. 

And then there was the fact that, even though none of them admitted it, Justin and Monty had been rivals since the day they met. Justin, who had been best friends with Bryce since the other boy had offered him companionship, understanding and shelter when he was a grubby little eight-year-old, dismissed and rejected by the other kids for being rough, dirty and poor, had been on the defensive the minute they had met Montgomery de la Cruz at football try-outs in their first year of high school at Liberty. The promises that he and Bryce had made each other about being kings at Liberty had rung in his ears as he watched Bryce watch Monty, who played with fearless aggression, even in a defensive position. He easily outpaced most of the other hopefuls, quick and unafraid of conflict, obedient to instruction and eager to please. He wasn’t a leader, but that was OK – Bryce had always felt most secure when unchallenged. 

Justin had hovered by Bryce’s elbow when Bryce had approached Monty after the try-outs. Bryce himself was a shoo-in for quarterback – his skill with the ball, his easy charisma and natural tendency to lead, and his parent’s donation to the coaching budget, made sure of that. And as king in waiting, he had been keen to select his court before accepting his throne. 

Monty had been standoffish, wary of Bryce’s intentions and casting a curious glance at Justin that seemed to suggest he recognised the other boy – not for who he was but what he was. Poor kids recognised their own, and Monty knew instantly that Justin was like him and not like Bryce; the other boy had been noticeably confused by their friendship and uncertain what Bryce wanted from him. Justin, feeling more insecure than he had in the five years he and Bryce had been friends at that point, had willed Monty to reject Bryce’s friendly smile and invitation to hang out in his pool house that weekend. Monty had looked at Justin watching him and had nodded.

“Yeah. Alright.”

And so, they had settled into this awkward, uneven triangle, Bryce at the top and Justin and Monty shifting back and forth at his whim. It suited Bryce for them to get along with each other, but not better than they got along with him. 

“You talk to Zach?”

Justin blinked, shielding his eyes from the harsh midday summer sun.

“Not in the last couple of days. Every time I text he’s at the Crestmont or babysitting.”

Monty crumpled the plastic wrap from his sandwich and reached for the granola bar, tearing the packet open.

“I talked to Scotty yesterday. He reckons his dad is back in the hospital and doing pretty bad,” he looked awkward, and focussed his attention on breaking off a piece of the granola bar. “Like, not coming home again kinda shit.” He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Scotty reckons we should go visit him in the hospital or whatever, but I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck to say to him.”

“Fuck,” Justin sighed, and meant it. 

If Bryce was king and Justin his closest counsel, then Monty was his sheriff – policing and beating loyalty into his subjects – and Zach was a baron kept close to manage his power and influence. None of them would ever say it, but they all recognised their places in the court, and knew that Zach was Bryce’s closest rival, with wealthy parents who had bought him an Audi for his sixteenth birthday, a natural talent for basketball, baseball and football, the kind of build that most boys their age would commit actual murder for, and a genuine kindness beneath his eagerness to fit in. 

His dad had gotten the diagnosis only eight months ago, and it had been a fast decline since then. Chemotherapy had done nothing to stop the cancer’s spread and had ravaged him in the process. When his treating physicians had, with some hesitation, offered him another round, he had declined, preferring to spend the time he had left with his family and not in a hospital trailing tubes and monitors. Zach didn’t talk about it much, and sometimes Justin wondered if it had anything to do with the constant needling from the guys – Zach was soft, easily riled and easily bated, reliable for an emotional reaction if you prodded him just right.

“Shit’s fucked, man,” Monty said, picking pieces from his granola bar and staring out over the quad. “Zach’s dad’s a good guy. My dad’s a fucking asshole and he’ll never fucking die.”

Justin twisted his empty hands together and nodded his agreement.

“Shit’s fucked.”


	3. 3

On the second day of summer school, Justin managed to keep his amusement contained to a cheeky grin when he walked into the biology lab, even though he was bursting at the seams with jokes about what Monty looked like in his glasses combined with a lab coat worn over his plaid shirt, and Monty repaid him for the dubious kindness by tossing a pen to him before he asked, somehow already aware that Justin had lost the one he had borrowed the day before, after chewing the end so much that Monty had refused to accept it back. They sat out by the quad again at lunch, Monty eyeing Justin when he tossed his bag under the table and sat empty handed, lamenting the photos he was receiving over text from Bryce and Jessica of their holidays, beaches and landmarks and smiles. Monty agreed, working his way through an untidily wrapped jelly sandwich and a pear. 

On the third day, Justin was too exhausted to rustle up more than a smirk, or to blink wordlessly when they took their normal table by the quad, and Monty shook loose two sandwiches, two oranges and a fistful of protein bars from the crumpled brown paper sack he pulled from his backpack. Sheri, who they had run into on their way past the gym, where she had been returning a few locker keys from squad members who had turned them in late at the end of the season, cocked an eyebrow, looking between them.

“You get peanut butter,” Monty said, shoving one sandwich and an orange at Justin across the table. He held up the other sandwich, slapped together tuna fish and lettuce. “Coz you’re allergic.”

Justin, throat thick with surprise and humility, chuckled as he forced himself to calmly unwrap the plastic from the sandwich, which looked undeniably assembled by a careless and half reluctant teenage boy, despite that his empty stomach was practically screaming for him to eat as quickly and as much as he could. 

“Shellfish, dude. I’m allergic to shellfish.”

“Exactly,” Monty shrugged, frowning when Sheri laughed.

“Monty, shellfish means like crabs and lobsters. You know,” she smiled kindly, although amusement brightened her eyes, “like, seafood with shells.”

Monty snorted, looking frustrated at himself for having bothered, even as Justin tore the plastic from the sandwich and took a huge bite, grinning around the mouthful as he and Sheri dissolved into giggles. Pink coloured the bridge of Monty’s nose and the tips of his ears beneath his freckles.

“When the fuck did you ever eat lobster, white trash?”

Justin laughed, choking down a large mouthful of sandwich and cramming some more into his mouth. He shoved it into his cheek to retort,

“Last night with your mom, while you were making sandwiches.”

Monty looked as though he wanted to grab the extra orange he had brought for Justin and choke him with it, but instead reached across the table toward the protein bars. Justin, swallowing a mouthful of sticky peanut butter, paused with the last of his sandwich halfway to his mouth. The rolled back sleeve of Monty’s blue and tan plaid shirt drew back to his elbow as he rifled through the pile of protein bars, revealing a purple-black bruise on his forearm. If Sheri noticed, she didn’t say anything, and Monty didn’t attempt to adjust his sleeve. After a moment’s search, he plucked one of the protein bars from the pile, offering it to Sheri, who smiled sweetly.

“Aww, cherry is my favourite, but I have to meet my parents for lunch.” She stood and swung her bag onto her shoulder, pausing to lay a hand on Monty’s shoulder before she left. “Don’t kill him, OK? He’s only small. It wouldn’t be fair.”

Monty smirked and Justin scoffed in protest, watching Sheri walk away toward the car park. He glanced at Monty, who had finished his sandwich and started rolling his orange between his palm and the tabletop to loosen the skin. Justin glanced after Sheri once more, confirming that she was beyond hearing distance, before slanting a sideways look at Monty as he reached for his own orange.

“That looks nasty, dude,” he commented casually, lifting his chin to indicate the bruise, an inky dark stain the size and shape of an adult hand, wrapped around the other boy’s forearm. 

Monty looked down at the bruise, shrugged, and began peeling his orange.

“So?”

Justin bit the inside of his cheek. Although he knew where the bruise had come from – they all knew, Monty had never tried to keep it a secret – the rest of this was uncharted territory. The friendship between them had always been one based on circumstance alone. Without Bryce or sports, there was no commonality left between them other than their abusive parents, which they never talked about anyway. Justin had leaned on the other guys for a place to crash, borrowed money and accepted shouts of beer, weed and whatever else he could manage without feeling too guilty that his mother’s neglect was obvious, even to jocks who thought about little other than sex, working out and probably more sex, while Monty’s injuries appeared with too much severity and frequency to hide or explain away, especially in a locker room, and if anyone had doubted where they might have come from, Alex had made it clear by casually commenting during a Sunday afternoon of beer, poker and video games at Bryce’s that Big Monty – who, despite apparently despising his son, had named the boy after himself – was a regular in the sheriff department’s drunk tank. It probably went some way to explaining why Monty and Alex were always one snark away from a brawl.

The possibility that Monty had thought of him, even if it had taken him two days to realise what he was seeing – no one had ever accused Monty of being clever - made Justin feel awkward and ashamed. Even as an eight-year-old, it had taken him hundreds of stubborn interactions with Bryce before he had been able to balance his gratitude and need against his humiliation and shame at relying on someone else for basic necessities like food and shelter. Over time, he had convinced himself that Bryce had more than he needed, and if someone was going to benefit from that abundance, why not him? Justin hadn’t ever been to Monty’s house, but he knew where he lived and the minimum wage jobs his parents worked. There was no pool house, no maid, no overflow of drugs and booze and freedom and money. Just Monty packing him a spare lunch because despite being a raging asshole most of the time, he had noticed Justin was in need and, without Bryce, knew that he had no one else.

Just like him.

Justin’s throat felt tight and he shrugged uncomfortably as he turned the orange over in his hands.

“So… I mean… everything OK?”

Monty shrugged back.

“Same as always.”

Justin didn’t know what to say to that, so he peeled his orange and said nothing. They sat in silence, sucking orange juice from their knuckles and spitting seeds, until the smattering of kids seated around them started packing up and making their way back to class. When Justin leaned down to retrieve his bag, Monty, already standing, pointed at the half dozen protein bars.

“They’re yours.”

His tone was dismissive, as though he were suggesting that Justin was responsible for them and should tidy them away, and Justin was grateful for it and the excuse it provided not to have to express his thanks as he swiped them into his open duffel, zipping it back closed before Monty had an opportunity to notice the change of clothes and toiletries shoved inside. They walked back to the main building in silence, Monty stepping away to toss the sack of orange peels in a trash can. Justin used the moment that it took the other boy to catch him up to shove down his pride and queue up the question before hesitation smothered it. 

“You think I could crash at your place tonight?”

Monty looked at him for a long moment, lips parted in surprise, then dropped his gaze, scrubbing a hand through his hair uncomfortably.

“My old man doesn’t let people stay over.”

Justin shook his head, responding more quickly than he had intended.

“Nah, that’s cool. No problems.”

He shoved the door open when they reached the main building, swinging a hand back to catch it as Monty followed him through. They walked in silence toward the stairs back up to the science wing. A step behind Justin on the staircase, Monty paused.

“Hey.”

Justin turned on the landing. The other boy fidgeted with the strap of his backpack, the bruise on his arm dark plum against his olive skin in the warm indoor light. 

“If you don’t want to go home, we could go down to the docks,” he shrugged awkwardly, glancing up at Justin. “I’ve got some beers in the Jeep.”

A lopsided grin lit Justin’s face.

“Okay. Yeah.”


	4. 4

Monty had exactly three beers in the Jeep - two cans in the rear pocket of the passenger seat and one rolling loose between his work boots, sports bag and other miscellaneous junk in the rear storage. They chugged one each in the Liberty car park, lowering the cans into their laps and smiling sweetly as they waved to their biology teacher walking by to her dinged up old Volvo, then drove with a light buzz to the Blue Spot Liquor store. Although they had agreed to share it, Monty drank most of the second beer while Justin rooted around underneath the seats, through the glove compartment and in the seat pockets for lost change, laughing when, stopped at an intersection with Justin jammed down between the seats, Monty had saluted the car next to them with his almost empty beer and pointed at Justin’s upraised ass, the only part of him visible through the open driver’s window.

“Can’t get enough of the D!”

Snorting with laughter and red faced, Justin tumbled back into the passenger seat and counted out the crumpled notes and loose change as Monty peeled away from the lights. He allowed the tyres squeal as he yanked the wheel around and drove fast up the alleyway to the side of the liquor store, where the obnoxiously loud trap music fell suddenly silent as he killed the engine. They traded the handful of change – a little over nine dollars – for the beer, Monty grinning when Justin found only a scant mouthful left in the bottom. 

“Dude, what the fuck?!” Justin called after him, tipping his head back to swallow the final trickle while Monty went inside. 

Justin crumpled the empty can and tossed it into the back seat, raising a curious eyebrow when it bounced off of something metal. Stretching behind the driver’s seat, he nudged aside a crumpled Liberty Tigers t-shirt that he had tugged from beneath the passenger seat in his hunt for cash and discarded earlier, and uncovered an aluminium baseball bat. Apprehension added an edge to the soft buzz of the alcohol and his brow creased in a frown. The tape wrapped around the grip was old and ragged and, where the black and white logo had mostly worn away from the shaft, it had been replaced by a dried, muddy red smear of blood. 

“Fuckin’ Wally, man.” Monty didn’t seem to notice Justin flinch, startled, as he dumped a twelve pack on the hood. “Too busy talking about candy bars, didn’t even card me.” He cracked a beer from the pack and held it up like a lure. “C’mon, we’re walking the rest of the way. I don’t need my car stolen.”

Justin reached for the door handle but hesitated, glancing back at the bloodied bat.

“Jesus, dude. Bring the protein bars if you’re that hungry,” Monty complained loudly.

Justin shook his head and got out of the car.

The walk from the Blue Spot to the navy pier wasn’t long, but cut them through the middle of town. Past Baker’s Drugs, empty and quiet other than Mr Baker sorting receipts behind the counter. Past the empty space that Mrs Walker had rented to turn into some kind of swanky, expensive new age yoga retreat or something, still under construction with men on ladders fitting light fixtures and tiling. Past the Crestmont, where they looked for Zach’s car but couldn’t see the distinctive Audi parked anywhere nearby. Justin, open and half-empty beer in one hand, craned his neck to see if Hannah Baker was at the snack counter, cursing when Monty took advantage of his distraction and buzz to give him a shove, sending him stumbling against the ticket booth and startling the boy inside.

“Dude!” Justin slurred through a laugh, his beer fizzing to spill over his hand as he shoved back. Monty laughed as he stumbled off of the path and into the street. Justin’s stomach went suddenly tight at the sound of a screaming car horn, but Monty simply stepped back as the driver swerved around him, unafraid and face lit with an amused grin as he repositioned the twelve-pack slung under his arm. Justin half-choked on a chuckle and flicked the beer from his fingers as the momentary spike of panic dissolved into anxious white-noise, fizzing uncomfortably in the back of his throat. He wondered how much violence someone had to face to scale down the risk of being run over to barely worth noticing.

The rest of the walk to the pier took them across an industrial area and through a hole in a stretch of cyclone fencing. Normally, they wouldn’t bother trying to sneak in during the day – too many workers and hopeful fishermen with nothing better to do than call the sheriff’s station to report underage drinking – but the docks were quiet, only a weathered Bronco parked up at the foot of the pier, its owner nowhere to be seen. Justin crushed his beer can against his leg and lobbed it through one of the Bronco’s open windows, both boys laughing as it sailed into the back seat. Monty broke off another can and tossed it to Justin as they headed down to the end of the pier. 

It had been dark for hours when Monty, sitting on the edge of the pier with his legs dangling over the water, looking down at the dark, quiet waves lapping at the pillars below, asked,

“So, when did you last go home?”

Justin, six beers in and feeling comfortably numb, his thoughts sluggish and blood thrumming hot and loud in his ears, lay back on a large steel crate, watching the pinprick stars overhead blink through thin wisps of cloud.

“Sunday night,” he answered, tone flat, even as memory splashed across the front of his mind, overlapping shouting and cursing, Seth’s harsh grip on his arm when he had tried to escape into his room, his mother’s careless, unseeing gaze as she nodded on the couch, her works scattered amongst empty bottles of cheap wine, crumpled food packets, months old magazines and overflowing ashtrays on the coffee table. She had promised him – Seth said I could have it – and like an idiot, he had believed her. He hated it when she asked him to help her shoot up, hated even more the soft, shaking need in her voice when she begged, her veins too collapsed and her hands too unsteady to do it herself. Not that that stopped her – she knew that he knew, she would keep trying, over and over, until he either gave in and took pity on her, or she eventually managed it herself, her hands and feet studded with wounds prone to infection from all her failed attempts. 

Seth said I could have it.

She promised, and Justin had crouched down on the grubby bathroom tiles in front of where she sat on the closed toilet lid, all thin birdlike limbs and unfocussed gaze as he took her hand in one of his to steady it, rubbing the pad of his thumb back and forth over the vein between her index and middle finger, and the syringe in the other. 

At least the needle looked clean.

Seth had not said she could have it. Seth assumed Justin had stolen it. Sold it and kept the money himself, or used it himself – he was the son of a junkie whore, wasn’t he?

“Meth Seth-“ Justin realised sluggishly, his thoughts weighed with alcohol, that he’d never told Monty about Seth, although the other boy didn’t seem to need the reference explained, and Justin had to wonder how many of his secrets Bryce actually kept. “-My ma’s boyfriend,” he corrected, “He’s a fucking asshole.”

“I hear that,” Monty muttered.

He drained the last of the can in his hand and sent it skipping over the waves. Justin propped himself up on his elbows to look down at the other boy, watching the empty beer can bump over the dark, gentle waves. 

“Your dad do that to your arm?”

For a moment, Justin thought Monty wasn’t going to answer. Justin was certain he’d heard Monty talk about his father before – although most of his memories any older than a few days seemed suddenly irretrievable, marooned and sloshing around in the back of his head. Definitely, he’d heard the other guys talking about him. About seeing him passed out in the alley behind the Blue Spot bright and early on a Tuesday morning or screaming at the bouncer who wouldn’t let him back into the bar he’d just been ejected from. Only once, Justin had seen Big Monty for himself, at one of the Tigers’ early football games – the only game Justin had ever known him to attend. He wasn’t quite staggering drunk but enough to be mean and loud about it, shouting and cursing every time Monty wasn’t quite quick enough or didn’t tackle hard enough, which only seemed to make the boy fumble worse. One of the other fathers had approached him where he was stringing together an expletive laden chain of insults especially for Monty, who had been called back to the bench.

“Hey,” the other father had said, flinching but holding his ground when Big Monty rounded on him. “You shouldn’t talk to your boy like that.”

For a long, airless second, it seemed as though Big Monty would hit the other man, but then, he had broken into a sneer, and turned toward the bench. 

“C’mere, you little shit.”

From the field between plays, Zach observing silently off to his left, Justin had watched Monty obediently hand his helmet off to Bryce, who accepted it wordlessly and watched him walk over to his dad. Either completely unaware of the number of eyes following him or glad for the audience, Big Monty had waited until his son was on the other side of the fence, leaned over the barrier, and slapped him hard enough to stagger Monty a step. With a smile like a snarl, Big Monty had turned back to the other father.

“You want one?”

The other man, looking shaken, shook his head and backed away. He didn’t look at Monty, who stared down at his boots, his cheek blooming red, as he made a hurried retreat back into the crowd. 

And no one had said anything. 

They called the next play, Monty sat down on the bench beside Bryce, the other boy’s boot propped up on Monty’s helmet while he iced his hamstring, and no one said anything.

Justin had lay awake thinking about it that night and then, afterwards, tried not to ever think of it again.

“Yeah,” Monty admitted with a sigh, pulling his legs back up underneath him to get up. He teetered unsteadily on the edge of the pier for a moment and Justin sat up so quickly that his head spun, his see-sawing vision settling in time to watch Monty stumble backward but remain upright. He scrubbed his hand roughly over the bruise on his arm, hard enough that it must have hurt. “Didn’t get out of bed quick enough, I guess.” 

Justin shuffled to the edge of the container and eased himself off, catching its edge to steady himself as his legs tried to buckle beneath him.

“You ever hit him back?”

Monty gave him a puzzled look heavily diluted by alcohol.

“Not that time,” he said, eyeing Justin as he passed the other boy, headed back to the foot of the pier. Justin trailed after him, abandoning what was left of the beer on top of the crate. 

“But, ever?” he prodded, wrapping both hands around his mostly empty can of beer and swinging it like a bat when Monty threw a confused frown over his shoulder. 

“Oh,” Monty said, then laughed when Justin realised he was spilling beer all over his own shoes. “That’s what you were looking at back there.” He kicked distractedly at the gravel that crunched underfoot as they stepped back onto the dock to circle around the old Bronco, which stood exactly where it had been when they arrived, Justin’s beer can still lying in the back seat. “Nah. That blood’s mine.”

Even through layers of alcohol and exhaustion from two and a half nights sleeping rough wherever he could manage, Justin felt that familiar hollow feeling from the night after that football game settle into the pit of his stomach. The following Monday at school, Bryce had waited until Monty walked into the locker room before practice, then grabbed Justin by the front of his shirt, raising one hand dramatically and quipping loudly – you want one? – before bursting into peals of laughter. The other boys had laughed along and Monty, cheek bruised yellow-green, had smiled, but hadn’t talked to any of them for the rest of the day. 

“Hey, Justy.”

Justin looked at Monty through the windscreen as he leaned in to the driver’s side window. The old Bronco’s engine came to life with a throaty, rust-edged roar, the headlights flicking on to illuminate the glee in Justin’s eyes. He tossed his empty beer can over his shoulder and grinned.

“I’m driving.”


	5. 5

Most of the other boys had been jealous when Bryce’s parents had bought him the Range Rover for his sixteenth birthday, but not Justin.

Justin didn’t just see the expensive price tag and all the luxury add-on’s and the creamy leather seats. For him, the Range Rover was more than just another big-ticket material possession to be envious of Bryce for. It was more than daytrips to the beach, where they drank on the boardwalk and admired women in their bathing suits and pushed each other into the path of rollerbladers, or camping weekends, where he and Scott and Monty had a rare opportunity to laugh at Bryce for his ineptitude putting up a tent, never having stayed anywhere that wasn’t meticulously prepared for his arrival or rated less than four and a half stars. It was more than a chance to ditch the bus and ride shotgun to school in the morning, window rolled down so that anyone who recognised the Range Rover knew exactly who had the seat at Bryce’s right hand and all of the choice and privilege and power that came with it. It wasn’t even just the security of Bryce’s favour, the way he would pick Justin up first if they were going somewhere as a group to make sure he got the front seat, or would kick one of the other boys out – usually Monty – making him get in the back so that Justin could ride up front.

It was freedom. 

Justin was still fifteen when Bryce got the Rover, but he had needled Bryce into teaching him how to drive, volunteering to be designated driver and go on beer runs when they went to parties and, after he turned sixteen and got his provisional licence, running errands when Bryce was busy with whatever girl he was trying to get naked or meaningless social event his parents required him to make an appearance at or just couldn’t be bothered and enjoyed the idea of Justin running around after him. Justin hadn’t cared that the other guys laughed at him, asking if he was trying out for a job as the Walker’s butler. Driving the Range Rover, Justin could imagine a different life. Not even one as fancy as Bryce’s. Just something simple and easy. Where he had a clean house and warm bed and food in the kitchen, where he could just buy something if he needed it, and he could take care of his mom, and there would be no Seth or any of the men who had come before him. He would be safe and secure. Happy.

For now, drunk was about as close as he could get to that. 

At first, they stuck to the back roads of the industrial area while Justin crunched through the gears and got a feel for the Bronco’s rev points, or at least, as much of a feel as he could while he choked down beer-flavoured belches and fumbled the gearstick with fingers half-numbed by alcohol. The interior smelled of cigarettes and motor oil and a faint suggestion of fish guts, and there was a Saint Christopher medallion dangling from the rear-view mirror, which swung wildly as Justin stamped the brake pedal and jerked the wheel around, the tyres protesting with a banshee squeal. Monty braced himself with one hand on the armrest as they made a hairpin turn not quite narrow enough for the dead-end road, the tyres bumping over dirt and scrub until Justin brought them back onto the bitumen with a jolt that bounced them both in their seats. 

“You’ve been driving Brycey’s Rover too long,” Monty teased, watching the bright after-hours lights of processing plants and warehouses whizz past disinterestedly, as if they were out for a leisurely Sunday cruise. His elbow was propped against the passenger window, the only one not currently wide open and baying with a rush of cool night air, the winder rusted and refusing to budge. He slanted a look at Justin, smirking. “You drive like a fucking grandma.”

If he hadn’t been drunk, or maybe if the taunt had come from Bryce – he was comfortable in his second-place position at Bryce’s side, but there was no fucking way he would allow Monty to trade him for third – Justin might have allowed common sense to prevail. 

Cheek dimpling with a cocky grin, he made a right, planted his foot, and barrelled toward town. 

Monty, watching him with mischievous hazel eyes and a slow smile, buckled his seat belt. 

The outskirts of town were quiet and mostly empty, late on a Wednesday night, and Justin pushed the old Bronco’s engine until it wailed like an overworked beast, shaking the rusted frame around them as they cut toward the Evergreen County centre. People walked the footpaths and sat at alfresco tables outside of restaurants, chatting and enjoying the relaxed summer atmosphere. A movie had just finished at the Crestmont and patrons strolled out into the balmy night air, looking alarmed when the Bronco roared past. The tyres rode the curb as Justin cut the turn onto the main street too tight, and they laughed at the shocked expressions of onlookers. Justin turned a glance toward the passenger seat, half-hoping with devilish glee to identify some measure of fear or discomfort in the other boy’s expression, but Monty just cocked an eyebrow at him over his phone, eyes on the screen and camera aimed at Justin. 

“Asshole,” Justin cursed, swiping sideways with one hand while his cheeks, already hot with alcohol, flared brighter at the realisation he was being filmed. Monty laughed, avoiding his grasp easily.

“Wave to the camera, Justy,” he singsonged, twisting his hand to swivel the camera toward himself and the screen toward Justin. In his periphery, Justin could see Monty in duplicate, his grin equal parts teasing and amusement, a little sliver of jealousy, and a lot of just plain drunk. “Hey, Walker. Fuck your Hamptons house. We have more fun without you here, anyway.”

Justin, laughing, slammed his palm down on the horn for emphasis, and a woman jogging on the path up ahead in skin-tight leggings and ear-buds startled, fumbling the complicated little fitness tracker in her hands. She grimaced and raised a one-fingered salute after the Bronco as Justin continued to tap out a jaunty tune on the horn, Monty giggling encouragingly at his right, his face lit by his phone as he tapped at the screen, presumably sending the video to Bryce. 

Maybe he hadn’t been jealous when Bryce was gifted the Range Rover, but when Monty had finally saved up enough money from working part-time for his dad and selling the dirt bike that he had terrorized the town on for a few years to buy the Wrangler, envy had lodged in Justin’s chest, bitter and sharp edged and difficult to budge. The other guys had given Monty shit for weeks, even Bryce had smirked at the age of the second-hand model and pointed out the rust spots. In his typical fashion, Monty had let it roll off of him, and Justin had to wonder if it was because, despite the teasing, and even though the Jeep was worlds away from the Range Rover or Zach’s Audi, having his own car put Monty in a circle with Bryce that others – that Justin, particularly – didn’t have access to. 

Justin had been the only one who hadn’t joined in the ridicule, and at first it didn’t seem as though Monty noticed, until one evening after a late practice when Bryce had made plans with some girl and Zach had to babysit, he had offered to drive Justin home. He made a point not to do it very often, but on the odd occasion when the others were busy or Justin knew that the fact that he’d had a rough night was showing in his face more obviously than he would be able to hide from Bryce, he would text Monty to ask for a ride to school, and the other boy hadn’t turned him down yet. Monty never tried to talk to him about how things were going at home or whether his ma was doing better this week or any of that stuff that Bryce always asked when it was just the two of them, and Justin came to find the mindless jokes and banter over sports games and other students an unexpected relief. Over time, the edges of his envy had worn softer, until it had become part of a familiar old collection of all of the things that he wished weren’t so far out of his reach. 

Next to him, Monty chuckled with satisfaction as his phone pipped confirmation that the video had been sent. 

Up ahead, the traffic lights turned amber at an empty intersection, and Justin eased his foot off of the gas.

“C’mon, man,” Monty grinned, eyes wild. “Don’t be a little bitch.”

Caught somewhere between a smirk and a scowl, his heartbeat thundering in his ears and his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, Justin stomped the accelerator, grinding it down as Monty braced one hand on the dash, and they flew through the red light.

Even before they had crossed the intersection, it lit up blue and red. 

The sheriff’s department cruiser, parked outside of Monet’s on the left-hand side of the intersection, came alive with a howl of sirens and squealing tyres.

“Fuck!” Justin cursed, looking up at the pursuing vehicle in the rear-view mirror. Monty, lower lip caught between his teeth, looked over his shoulder, the bright flashing lights of the police vehicle reflecting off his eyes, his expression full of apprehension and thrill.

“Go right at Rorbach,” he said, without turning to check where they were, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he watched the sheriff’s deputy try to catch them up. “We can lose them in the suburbs.”

He didn’t have a lot of practice driving, and the Bronco wasn’t exactly easy to manoeuvre, the power steering almost non-existent and the heavy frame listing every time he tried to make a sharp turn, but Justin had a natural instinct for evasion. He’d spent his whole life devising escape strategies on the fly. It wasn’t always successful – sometimes, he found himself frozen, his fight and flight impulses mired in old traumas that he had pushed down so far that he almost forgot about them until they betrayed him, fear rooting him to the spot – but not this time. He was driven by alcohol-fuelled confidence and a disconnected memory blinking to life in the back of his mind – sitting on the bench at a game against East County, Bryce laughing as they watched Monty throw himself headfirst into an opposition linebacker twice his size, punching the ball free of the other boy’s grasp even as two other players buried him beneath a brutal tackle, and the heavy, suffocating weight of insecurity in his chest at the way Bryce’s face lit with pride and admiration as he shook his head and said, “Dude’s a dead set idiot, but shit, he’s fucking fearless.”

Fuck Bryce. 

One of the rear tyres stuttered, struggling to find purchase on the bitumen as Justin swung a hard right and aimed for the tree-lined streets of the housing estates. The roads were narrower here and cars parked along the curb presented an additional obstacle, but as they wound their way down the hill that sloped toward the working-class area of the county, cutting across lawns and clipping a mailbox outside of one house on a corner taken too sharply, the cruiser began to fall behind, barely keeping close enough to track which direction they took as Justin turned corners in a random pattern that made sense only to him, the beer that sloshed in his stomach and soaked his rational thoughts drowning any acknowledgement that he had no idea where they were or how to get back. 

Monty’s sudden grasp on his upper arm was hot and rough, and lasted only a moment as the other boy grinned at him, eyes fever bright with adrenalin and alcohol.

“Nice one, Foley,” he said, and Justin’s gaze flicked to the rear-view mirror as Monty turned a look over his shoulder, watching for the glow of red and blue around the edges of the last intersection. “You fucking lost that cun-“

Monty bit his tongue, cutting the words off as Justin slammed his foot onto the brake pedal and yanked the steering wheel to the left. 

The back of the heavy Bronco wandered, tyres squealing and stuttering, the rear driver’s side wheel beginning to lift as Justin wrestled for control, the SUV’s bulky frame tipping under its own momentum. 

The headlights swung wildly over parked cars and tidy house-fronts and leafy shrubbery, where the calico cat that Justin had spotted in the middle of the road a fraction of a second after his gaze left the rear-view mirror darted for cover.

The Bronco’s wheels cut messy swathes through a neatly trimmed lawn, smashing garden ornaments in its wake and tearing one, two, three rose bushes up by the roots.

Monty, eyes wide and breath caught in his throat, had the presence of mind to let go of the dash, wrapping both hands around his seatbelt, and Justin screwed his eyes shut, turning his face away as the Bronco slammed, rear passenger door first, into a huge oak tree. 

For a few long moments, the Bronco’s engine continued to rumble brokenly, the overheated beast billowing steam across the cracked windscreen, groaning and stuttering, until the headlights dipped and went dark, and it was quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should clarify that I didn't intentionally mean to end this here - the section was just getting too long and I needed to find a logical place to cut it.
> 
> So:  
1\. unintentional cliffhanger  
2\. no one is dead  
3\. these devilish boys will continue to act like devilish boys shortly...


	6. 6

In the murky dark, Justin’s awareness stammered and faltered as it came back online, like a machine struggling to restart. He was dimly aware of the cool night air brushing over his face, somehow gentle and painful all at once, and the small sounds of the overheated engine ticking as it gradually cooled and the tinkle of broken glass from the driver’s side window, shattered inside the door. He could hear a hitched breath, but couldn’t quite identify if it came from Monty or from him. He expected to smell gasoline, but all that his half-numb senses could identify was engine coolant and the sickly sweet scent of jasmine from a nearby garden. The inside of his mouth tasted like copper and static.

All of this came to him disjointed, slotted in between backfiring memories as his consciousness attempted to reboot, some automatic part of his survival instinct flicking backwards through his memories for something useful to him in that moment, and coming up empty.

Lying on his back on the pitch during practice, winded and chest heaving, Luke standing over him with a concerned frown behind the grill of his helmet, his voice sounding as though it were underwater as he offered one huge paw, asking, “Shit, sorry dude, you OK?”

A kitchen in an apartment he only half remembered and didn’t think they had lived in – or had they? – shaking his mother with small, grubby hands, her eyes half shuttered and her breathing shallow, limbs sprawled across the dirty linoleum, looking up at the man standing in the doorway with tears on his bruised cheeks, a helpless, desperate sob bubbling from his throat.

Sitting on the padded chair at Jessica’s bureau, her thighs warm spread across his lap, the scent of her apple and citrus shampoo and the featherlight touch of her fingertips on his jaw as she leaned close to kiss him.

Stepping out of the bathroom in the pool house, still tying the drawstring of his board shorts and his fingers going numb and still at Bryce’s voice from the couch – “I swear, it’s like having a fucking dog, the amount of care that guy needs” – the spike of panic that the words, although clearly not meant for him to hear were about him, and the crushing disappointment when Monty, sitting beside Bryce, glanced over and spotted him, his expression confirming the truth even though he didn’t speak a word. 

Dark, the hot press of a body much larger than his crowded into the small bed beside him, too close, all along the length of him so that he couldn’t move, damp breath on his face, rough hands and an open wound shrieking deep inside his chest. 

He forced his eyes open.

Justin’s hands, still wrapped around the steering wheel, felt rusted in place, his fingers uncooperative as he willed them to let go, aftershocks of adrenalin sending tremors along his limbs. His ears rang and his head felt too heavy for his aching neck to support, and every intake of breath was like fire, blackening his lungs and licking around his ribs while he fumbled to release his safety belt. He glanced at Monty, dimly aware that he should make sure he was doing the same, and choked down the rush of beer and stomach acid that surged up the back of his throat.

“Fuck. Dude.”

Monty blinked at him, pupils dilated huge and black, then turned his head to follow Justin’s gaze. The passenger window was intact but spider-webbed, the centre of the concentric circular pattern stained bright red. With an unsteady hand, Monty touched his fingers to his temple. They came away slick with blood. 

“Shit,” he muttered, then chuckled with a kind of disconnected fascination. He looked up at Justin, but something caught his attention through the cracked windscreen. “Shit!”

Across the street, in the front window of the house where the cat had run to hide, lights flicked on. Two houses down, a porch light flared brightly and someone in pyjamas peered out around their front door. Justin looked down at the side mirror as Monty turned and shoved at the passenger door, one hand yanking at the door latch while the other fumbled to release his safety belt. Three blocks back, the cruiser, sirens silenced but lights still flashing, rounded the corner. 

“Fuck!” Monty cursed, twisting in his seat to kick at the passenger door, jammed closed in the buckled frame. When it didn’t budge, he turned and shoved Justin instead. “Move, Foley!”

Justin snatched all of the lingering wisps of memory, scrunched them into a ball and shoved them into a holding compartment in the back of his mind as he forced himself into action. The heavy door of the Bronco tried to swing back immediately after he threw it open and he stumbled, pinned between its weight and Monty pushing him from the other side, clambering across the seats to escape as Justin’s unsteady legs attempted to dump him on the ground. He tripped sideways in a deep, dirty rivet torn in the lawn underfoot by the Bronco’s uncontrolled slide, and Monty almost took him all the way over, snagging his jeans on one of the rose bushes pinned beneath the tyres as he tumbled out of the vehicle. Adrenalin, panic, alcohol and a grip on each other’s shoulders kept them upright, although barely, long enough to regain their balance. As the police cruiser spotted the Bronco and its sirens whistled a warning, the boys bolted.

Justin was lighter and faster but Monty kept pace and, when they reached the corner, followed Justin left, where they stuck close to the cars parked against the curb, ready to duck out of sight. Justin knew that they needed to get off of the street – there was no way either of them could outrun a car – and Monty seemed to have the same idea, although at first it didn’t appear that way. Justin watched, puzzled, as the other boy broke away, darting out into the middle of the road and then between a parked SUV and a station-wagon, hopping up the curb to clear the path in one stride and then, as if he wasn’t around seven beers in and bleeding from the head, vaulted the picket fence into someone’s front yard. Justin, suddenly irrationally terrified at the idea of being left behind, threw himself after the other boy, diving over the fence and landing in an ungainly, jarring roll on the other side as flashlights appeared at the corner. Bent double, he scrambled across the unmowed lawn to the side of the house, where Monty was standing in shadow, propped against a bolted side gate while he caught his breath, blood dark and wet in his hair and running along the edge of his jaw.

“Trying to ditch me?” Justin huffed in undertones between gulps of air. Monty snorted and shook his head.

“Such a bitch,” he muttered, mostly to himself, even as he turned one shoulder to the gate and bent, locking his fingers together and holding them out, palms up. With some reluctance, Justin moved closer and, with one hand on the other boy’s shoulder for balance, stepped into the lift, levering upward with his knee and gripping the top edge of the gate with his spare hand.

“Fucking Christ, Justy,” Monty grunted, heaving Justin’s weight upwards with both hands as Justin pulled himself up and hoisted one leg over the gate. “You been scamming sandwiches off everyone at school?”

“Such a bitch,” Justin parroted back with a taunting grin, leaning down to offer a hand. 

As quietly as they could with joints aching and rattled loose by the violent impact of the Bronco against the tree, and dexterity muted by can after can of beer, they clambered over the gate and into the unfamiliar backyard, and then repeated the pattern. Over the back fence of the next yard, using the lower branches of a young pine tree for balance, and then the side fence of the next, shadowed by a garden shed. They skirted around an inflatable pool, blow-up flamingo-shaped swimming rings floating on the still surface of the water, then over another side fence where, as luck would have it, there was a structure for them to climb down onto, a few feet high, sturdy and with a shallow incline to its roof. Monty went first, stepping cautiously forward to peer around the yard, looking for the best direction to take, while Justin clambered onto and then down from the squat wooden box, startling at the loud clang as his foot landed in a deep metal dish. Flinching, Monty turned to look back at Justin, who yanked his foot free with a clatter and stumbled a step. Looking back the way they had come, Justin realised that the structure they had used as a step ladder was actually a dog house. He opened his mouth to suggest that they keep an eye out for the occupant, but before he spoke a word, the other boy slammed bodily into him.

“Dude-“ Justin hissed, tripping over his own feet as well as Monty’s as the other boy shoved him out of the way in his haste to retreat. Monty, moving backwards, stumbled over the dog bowl himself, raising another loud clatter, and dropped into a half crouch, one hand stretched back for balance and the other ahead for protection as he backed up against the fence. Reading the terror in his expression, Justin looked, wide eyed with panic, into the dark yard, his fingers curling into fists and knees bending as he prepared to fight or run, old faded memories of the wickedly mean Rottweiler one of his mother’s dealers had owned when he was small raising the hairs at the nape of his neck. 

Dimly lit by the moon overhead, Justin made out what Monty was staring at, and pressed down a chuckle as his stance relaxed.

“Man, it’s a fucking Retriever,” he whispered, amused, gesturing with one hand at the sandy coated dog, which watched them, large and heavy-set but cautiously curious. 

Grinning, Justin looked back at the other boy, expecting to share an embarrassed chuckle at their shared panic, and was surprised to find Monty unmoved. The other boy’s complexion had gone sheet-white, the freckles across his nose and cheeks and the bright blood, now trailing down the side of his neck, standing out in stark contrast. He breathed through his nose, fast and hitching, while an anxious muscle flickered over his clenched jaw and the hand he held out defensively shook with involuntary fear.

Justin frowned, puzzled. This was the same boy who had laughed off almost being bowled over by a car and shrugged off a police chase since getting out of bed that morning. The same boy who fearlessly tackled and defended on the football field, squaring up to boys more than double his size without an ounce of hesitation, with relish, even, as if he liked the idea that he could hurt them, even if they hurt him twice as much – he was practiced at taking it. The same boy who Justin had seen Bryce treat like an attack dog himself, sending him into battle sometimes with nothing more than a glance or a word. Who Justin had witnessed, one evening after they had been drinking at the docks and some guy from the Hillcrest Knights out on a date with his girlfriend had shoulder-checked Bryce when they crossed paths outside of the Crestmont, and all it had taken was a look over his shoulder at Monty, a few steps behind, and the other boy had burst into action, closing the distance between them and then he was on the guy, launching a knee into his gut and steadying the back of his head with one hand while the other slammed into his face like a sledgehammer, two punches landed before they even hit the ground, Bryce smirking all the while. 

That same boy was absolutely, blindly terrified. 

“Hey,” Justin said softly, stepping into Monty’s line of sight and blocking the dog from view. The other boy blinked, looking up at Justin, and humiliation flared bright across his face as he stubbornly averted his gaze. He seemed to be trying to wrestle back control, consciously attempting to slow his breathing, although terror continued to draw his shoulders tight and tremor in his hands, now clenched into fists. Justin glanced back at the dog, still watching them silently at a distance, then nodded toward the side access of the house. “Come on. Let’s go this way.”

Justin waited to make sure the other boy got up, standing silently while he wrestled with himself until, after a moment of watching fear, frustration, anger and shame chase each other across his face, Monty schooled his features carefully, deliberately blank, and turned toward the side of the house. The gate to the front of the property was latched but not locked, and they slipped out quietly, pulling it closed behind them to be sure the dog remained secure in its yard. Sticking to the shadows, they made their way toward the street sign on the corner, Monty trailing behind and keeping an eye out for the police cruiser or any unwanted onlookers while Justin, feeling somehow more rattled by the other boy’s sudden crash-landing from adrenalin-fuelled confidence to terrified panic than anything else, craned his head back to read the street sign. 

“Shit,” he sighed, looking around at the unfamiliar houses. “I don’t know where in the fuck we are.” 

He looked back at Monty, who approached with some caution, the slope of his shoulders hesitant and a little sheepish. He squinted to make out the street sign over their heads, and Justin almost burst into involuntary, irrational giggling at the thought of asking him where he had left his glasses, but managed to tamp it down at the other boy looked around, then nodded toward the street that sloped down the hill to their right.

“This way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This section ended up twice as long as I planned, so I've chopped it in half again - the next part is written and I'll aim to post by the end of the week :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	7. 7

They walked side by side in silence, both keeping an eye on the street corners and houses around them; their attentive vigilance an excuse not to make eye contact. Their path, guided wordlessly by Monty, took them west four blocks and then south five. As they made the turn, so did the neighbourhood around them. The modest houses became increasingly more so, the yards unkempt and untidy, many harbouring rusting outdoor furniture, broken old toys and stripped, rotting car bodies. The houses grew older as they walked, progressing to chipboard and painted weatherboard, the television ariels leaning crookedly from rooves full of broken shingles and mould. Grubby sneakers, beat up old basketballs and well-used hula hoops lay in front yards and on the footpath, left behind by children dragged inside probably well past a reasonable bedtime hour.

Justin followed Monty when he crossed the street, making a diagonal line for a small weatherboard house perched at the top of a steeply sloping front yard, its only feature other than dry lawn that crunched underfoot and some struggling shrubbery was a huge old tree planted by the edge of the road. On the far side a concrete driveway slanted upwards to a narrow carport, where a large pick-up truck was parked, its tray full of messily stowed tools and equipment. The tray gate was emblazoned with a weathered decal – DE LA CRUZ CONTRACTING – in plain lettering, and a faded phone number. Justin hesitated, eyeing the truck, and then the house, in desperate need of a fresh coat of mint green paint, as the memory of their conversation earlier that day floated to the surface of his alcohol softened awareness, Monty’s awkward rebuff of his request for a place to stay the night.

“Foley.”

Justin turned toward the hissed whisper, and Monty waved for him to hurry up, disappearing around the side of the house. Stepping lightly past the darkened windows, trailing his fingertips along the rough weatherboard for balance as he stumbled across the uneven, patchy lawn, Justin followed. Monty stood at the last window, gently easing it open with a patient, practiced touch. Justin hovered awkwardly at his elbow, hands shoved in his pockets.

“Hey-“ he whispered, swallowing thickly when the other boy turned a look over his shoulder, both hands holding the window open. Justin shrugged uncomfortably, questioning now why he had ever gotten into the Bronco, or agreed to go drinking, or even accepted that stupid peanut butter sandwich. “I don’t want to get you in the shit with your dad…”

He trailed off as Monty rolled his eyes.

“So, shut the fuck up and he won’t know you’re here,” he hissed back, all of the involuntary terror and the humiliation that had trailed behind it replaced by his familiar unsubtle roughness. He tipped his head toward the window. “Come on. The window doesn’t stay up on its own – I’ll hold it for you, then I need you to hold it for me.”

Most of the time it was a frustration that Justin would prefer not to have to deal with – the way Monty spoke to other people the way his father spoke to him, immediately getting them off side and leaving Justin or Bryce or Zach to try to charm away the ill will that Monty unconsciously generated around him like some sort of security blanket – but sometimes, that brashness just worked, even when it shouldn’t, and as Justin levered himself headfirst in through the window, clambering onto the other boy’s bed and then swivelling to hold the pane open for Monty to climb through, he was grateful for the excuse it provided not to have to explain why climbing into the bedroom of a boy that was truly more a rival than a friend instead of finding a quiet, sheltered place beneath an overpass or behind an apartment building meant so fucking much to him. 

Justin eased the window back into place while Monty reached over to turn on the light. He scarcely had to move from the mattress to do it – the room was small enough that the door, which he pressed most of the way closed before flicking the light-switch, would just barely clear the edge of the narrow mattress. A cabinet of drawers against the wall by the head of the bed – Justin assumed it was the head, based on the pillow tossed there, but otherwise it was impossible to tell, the frame had no headboard and the bed was edged in at both ends by the walls of the tiny space – and a couple of sports posters were all that suggested the room actually belonged to someone and wasn’t simply storage space for a spare mattress. Justin hadn’t thought a bedroom existed smaller than the room he had at the apartment he shared with his mother, and that little collection of shame stored deep in his chest rattled as his subconscious plucked up and uncorked the humiliation he had felt the first time he had gone to Bryce’s house and seen the other boy’s sprawling domain. His California King mattress was larger than this whole room. 

“I gotta clean this shit up,” Monty whispered at him, touching the wound at his temple, which had stained the collar of his plaid shirt dark claret red and was still lazily oozing blood. He pinned Justin with a pointed look. “Stay in here and don’t make any fucking noise.”

Justin nodded obediently, sitting on the edge of the mattress while Monty eased open a drawer in the cabinet by the bed and pulled out a change of clothes, tucking the Tigers tee and cropped sweats – which Bryce referred to as his ‘ballet pants’, although Justin secretly suspected that the spiteful moniker was because Bryce didn’t have the calves to pull them off – under his arm. As Monty eased the drawer back into place, careful not to allow it to squeak, Justin started to open his mouth, hesitated, then leaned toward the other boy to murmur,

“Dude, can I borrow a change of clothes?”

Monty’s forehead creased in a frown as he cast an incredulous look over his shoulder. Bruising was beginning to rise beneath his skin like a water stain, a bluish-purple shadow curving around the edge of his eye socket from the impact of his head against the car window. Justin, shoving any embarrassment down into the lingering fizz of alcohol softening his self-consciousness, offered a cheeky grin.

“C’mon, man. I spilled beer all over me.”

If only make him stop talking, Monty huffed a breath and left the drawer open a couple of inches.

“Whatever. Just be fucking quiet.” he paused before slipping out the door, pointing a warning finger at Justin. “And stay out of my underwear drawer, faggot.”

Justin pulled the drawer carefully open and, although he felt instinctively driven to take a curious poke around, took out the first shirt his hand landed on and the pair of basketball shorts folded directly underneath. Gently, he slid the draw back into place, then set about getting changed before Monty came back. He quietly toed off his shoes and nudged them into the corner behind the door, then peeled off his socks, with no small amount of relief after wearing them for two days straight, and tossed them in the same direction. Justin would have said or done just about anything for a shower, but even the warm embrace of lingering drunkenness couldn’t dull the fact that Monty would probably throw him through the window if he asked. He could shower in the locker rooms in the morning. For now, fresh clothes would do fine. 

Justin wriggled out of his jeans – Christ, they needed a wash, they could practically stand up on their own – and then shucked off his varsity jacket and tee, leaving each garment crumpled on the floor where they fell. He wondered, distractedly, as he unfolded the borrowed t-shirt and yanked it down over his head – it smelled like soap and some kind of sugary fabric softener - whether it was weird that he was standing in Monty’s bedroom in his underwear. 

Apparently, the answer was ‘yes’, judging by the other boy’s expression as he slipped silently back into the room. 

Monty’s brows drew together in irritation when his gaze fell on the t-shirt – one of his work shirts, Justin realized belatedly, the same company name that had been emblazoned on the truck printed on the front – and the other boy started to say something, then realised that, other than the shirt, Justin was wearing only black cotton boxer briefs, and exasperation swung suddenly into angry embarrassment, the bridge of his nose crinkling with a frown even as colour flared in his cheeks. 

“Dude,” he said, bordering on slipping above whisper volume as frustration splintered the words, “the fuck? You can borrow some fucking pants!”

Justin, amused by the other boy’s discomfort, shrugged.

“I don’t like wearing pants to sleep,” he said flippantly, tossing the shorts he had taken from the drawer onto the cabinet, where they landed across a pile of text books and loose homework stacked in the slap-dash manner Monty did most things. 

Monty scoffed, nudging the bedroom door closed with his elbow, pressing gently until the latch clicked almost soundlessly into place. He made a point not to allow his gaze to stray any lower than Justin’s face. 

“Slept bare ass behind a dumpster last night, did you?”

Justin raised a suggestive eyebrow. He was aware of his own reputation as an incorrigible flirt, and was not picky about who he used his charm on – which alternately amused and infuriated Jess, depending on his target and purpose. Mostly, it pissed her off when he tried to use it on her. Despite that she claimed that it didn’t work, Justin knew it did - it worked equally well on breathless high school girls, flustered teachers who couldn’t fathom why he forgot to hand in his homework again, coaches berating him for being late to practice, the maids at the Walker’s house, who let him raid the fridge for snacks in the middle of the night and made him hot milk with cinnamon in the microwave; they all crumbled for his dimples and clearwater blue eyes. Sometimes, he could even make it work on Bryce, depending on what mood he was in – the other boy claimed proudly that it was a skill he taught Justin and, if he was being honest, that was at least half true. 

Justin had never ventured to try it on Monty – it had never struck him as a good idea. Probably, it was as dangerous as checking the wattage of an electric fence with his bare hands, but the alcohol and exhaustion were catching up to him, and what exactly the concept of a ‘good idea’ meant seemed far away now.

“Why?” he asked, cocking his head. “Sorry you missed it?”

He reached a casual, teasing hand toward Monty, and was surprised when the other boy bristled and jerked away defensively before he could make contact. For all the teasing and taunts he dished out, Monty took at least his fair share, if not more, and normally, he did it wordlessly. He would refuse to give up a reaction - not the way that Zach did, his hurt worn all over his face - and he would never bite back with anger the way that Bryce could if caught in the wrong mood. Even when the teasing was too much – more than Justin could comfortably laugh along with, crueller than he could even smile at when Bryce really wanted to make a point - Monty took it and he didn’t react, like he had to, to prove some kind of point, although Justin didn’t know what or to who. Confused and a little exasperated, Justin stepped back and waved the hand dismissively, as if he had never intended to touch the other boy at all. 

“I’ll wear them tomorrow.”

For a moment Monty, damp-haired and barefoot, the blood cleaned from his face and neck, although the wound at his temple still wept, looked as though he might forcibly put the shorts on Justin himself, dressing him like a defiant toddler, but seemed to think better of it. Instead, he shoved the pillow in his hands at him – a decorative cushion from a discount store that must have come from a couch somewhere in the dark, quiet house – and followed it with a bottle of water.

“Drink all of that,” he instructed in undertones, avoiding looking at Justin at all as he circled around him to the bed, where he picked up the light blanket and pressed it into Justin’s already full hands. “You’re on the floor.”

Without further instruction or another glance, Monty flopped on the mattress, shoving his face into the pillow, and seemed to be entirely done. Justin stood with his arms full, the room suddenly too small and too quiet. How many hours had it been since Monty had shoved that peanut butter sandwich across the table at him? Since they had pushed each other around outside the Crestmont? Since they had come to a bone jarring, shattering stop against that tree and fled into the night like demons, alighting through gardens and over fences as if there were no barrier in the world that could hold them? 

Justin’s tongue felt suddenly thick in his mouth and the alcohol in his stomach weighed twice as much as the buzz and the adrenaline, finally, all at once, fell away and all he was left with was a bone aching tiredness.

Maybe this was why he and Monty didn’t spend time alone. Together, they burned each other down to ash.

Monty didn’t move from his sprawl on the mattress when Justin flicked off the light switch, or when he wrapped the other boy’s blanket around himself and coiled down into a seated position on the floor amongst his discarded clothes, propping the cushion against the base of the bedside cabinet. He twisted the lid from the bottle of water and, although the thought of swallowing it made him feel like gagging at first, he found himself desperately thirsty. Swallowing gratefully, Justin eyed Monty curiously as his eyes adjusted to the dark. Even flopped onto his mattress and apparently tired, the lines of the other boy’s shoulders were full of tension, like he slept the way he did everything else – angrily. 

“Hey, Monty?”

The other boy didn’t respond to his whisper, but his breathing was too shallow to suggest sleep. Justin took another long swallow of water, rolled his aching shoulders and flexed his fingers, which seemed to creak like old hinges, then pressed on.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“No,” Monty answered, immediately and bluntly, into the curve of his arm where he bundled the pillow beneath his head.

Justin reached up to place the empty bottle on the cabinet, not bothering to right it when it tipped over onto its side, then slid down to rest his head on the cushion, cocooning himself in the blanket. The floor was hard, but it was dry and warm and sheltered and, even though Justin would never have expected it – Monty had never displayed any traits that could be considered remotely comforting or secure - he felt sort of safe with the other boy lying nearby. Justin looked up into the scant moonlight, diffused by the window and barely picking out the patchwork of scars that wrapped around Monty’s shin and calf, trailing a thin, pale line that curved down to his ankle. Blinking drowsily, Justin bundled the blanket up snugly beneath his chin. 

“How come you’re scared of dogs?”

Monty was quiet for a long time, long enough that Justin had closed his eyes and was already slipping gently backwards into sleep when he heard the other boy whisper. 

“Fuck you, Foley.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of a lighthearted note for our devilish boys. It's all downhill from here, I'm afraid.
> 
> I've set the chapter limit to 10 because I'm nearly finished with this one - a couple more sections and we'll be done.
> 
> I have a few one-shots in planning stages to pick up once I'm finished here, but I'd love to hear any ideas, suggestions or recommendations you have or that you'd like to see. 
> 
> Thanks again for reading and commenting :)


	8. 8

Justin dreamed a technicolour horror show. A house of mirrors, all made up of memories and insecurities unlocked by alcohol and near waking, so tightly interwoven that he couldn’t tell them apart. This was different to coming to in the Bronco – the dreamscapes were foreign and familiar all at once, places he knew but all the details wrong and muddled, people he recognised but with disjointed bodies and unfocussed faces and disconnected voices that he somehow identified with a heavy sense of dread. He was both unwelcome and a prisoner, outside of himself, watching him and watching himself back like an endless parade of shadows and reflections. Darkness and distortion surrounded the kaleidoscopic scenery, blotting out any potential route to slip between the edges where one moment ended and the next began, even though he crawled and clawed, desperate to find and prise apart the seams, while the painful details and sensations took sharp unavoidable focus around him.

His mother, rolling her eyes and taking another drag on her cigarette when he ran to her, tears on his cheeks and clutching his broken wrist, the second-hand bicycle she had given him for his birthday – a week late - stolen by neighbourhood kids who knew there would be no consequences, and weren’t wrong.

Jessica glancing sidelong at Alex across the classroom, smiling when he caught her eye and pretended to tie a noose and hang himself, tongue dangling from the side of his mouth while the teacher faced the blackboard, scrawling dates and droned about the figureheads of the Confederate Army. 

Seth leering at him, filthy grin like a knife slash when Justin came home from school to find him kneeling over his mother, passed out on the couch, one tattooed hand slid up underneath her grubby dress.

A hand large enough to smother his face, pressing into the hinges of his jaw until tears beaded along his eyelashes and he opened his mouth, the fingers between his teeth, rough and foul on his tongue, too big to bite down on even if he hadn’t been too terrified to try.

Sitting at a table alone on the back quad, watching Bryce swinging a baseball bat in effortless figure eights while Monty and Scott laughed at a joke he couldn’t hear and Zach reminded them to focus on practice, awareness of his exclusion stinging like a fresh wound, waiting for one of them to be ready to leave so that he could tag along, go anywhere other than home.

A voice he didn’t recognise – or did he? – far away but loud enough to quake the nightmare around him, all at once.

“Well, if he came home last night, where the fuck’s his car, huh?”

Sitting in the passenger seat of Bryce’s Range Rover, parked outside of a club where he bartered their entry with a doorman in exchange for steroids or pills, those same pills that he handed around now – one for Scott, one for Luke, one for Monty, one for Justin – and the rest in his pocket, to be dropped into an unsuspecting drink later, maybe, but it was better not to think about that, just do what the others did and tip the pill down his throat, because that was safer – easier? - than sleeping in alleyways and going days without food and not having enough money for school supplies or new shoes when he grew out of the last pair, or-

That voice, again, and a sudden staggering loss of focus. 

“Probably out all fucking night, trying to find some other faggot desperate enough to mount his stupid ass.”

He knew it, but not from where. 

Sitting at the poker table in the pool house, the table top crowded with empty beers bottles and playing cards, watching Monty re-start another round on some shoot ‘em up video game and wishing he’d give up, go home already, because Justin was fucking exhausted and the other boy was sitting on the couch he’d been crashing on for the last five nights straight. 

“Monty! Boy, you better not be fucking late for school…”

Justin’s eyes snapped open at the sudden grasp on his arm, yanking him unceremoniously from sleep. Almost immediately, he scrunched them closed again as his body launched an unrelenting assault on his senses. His head throbbed in time with the heartbeat thundering in his ears, his shoulders and ribs ached as if he had spent the day before running tackling drills with Luke, the bones in his hands felt like they were made of crumbling cement, and his stomach flip-flopped as Monty shook him again, the other boy’s grip on his elbow hard and urgent. 

“You have to get out.”

Justin groaned, trying to force his sandpaper eyelids open again, squinting against the morning sun pouring through the window. Before he could even unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth to respond, Monty was out of the bed and standing over him, moving so quickly that his pillow tipped off of the mattress and landed across Justin’s face. Monty swiped it aside, tearing the blanket off of Justin with one hand while the other insistently yanked on his arm. Justin curled in on himself instinctively at the sudden lack of warmth, even though it was hot and airless in the small room with the door and window both closed. Monty’s borrowed t-shirt, at least two sizes too big for him, had ridden up around his ribs during his restless sleep, revealing a strip of mottled blue across his abdomen, darker at his hips where his body had been thrown against his safety belt the night before. If Monty was at all concerned by the other boy’s injuries, or in any way troubled by his own, it was entirely eclipsed by the anxious frown that creased his forehead and brightened his eyes. 

“Fucking _now_, Foley!” he insisted, desperation edging into pleading.

“Jesus Christ, alright!” Justin bit back, struggling to tug free from the cobwebs of nightmares trailing from the corners of every thought, distracting and cloying. 

Monty didn’t wait for him to get his feet under him, glancing over his shoulder at the bedroom door as he dragged the other boy up by his elbow, while Justin grasped at the edge of the cabinet for balance with his free hand, his perspective swaying unsteadily in an attempt to recover balance at the sudden upward tilt. His other hand fisted instinctively in the front of Monty’s shirt when the other boy tried to turn him more quickly than his aching head could cope with. 

“OK – fuck – I’m going!” Justin grumbled, trying to blink his head clear as Monty’s attention snapped to the bedroom door, which swung open close enough to almost graze his shoulder. 

“Who the fuck’re you talking t-“

Monty’s grip went bone-crushing tight on Justin’s elbow, and then was gone, all of his attention on his father, whose surprise moved into disgust as he took in the two sleep-dishevelled boys and their desperate grip on one another, the bedding strewn amongst them and the blanket still clutched in his son’s hand, the clothing discarded around the room, the panicked guilt splashed all over his son’s face and Justin, stunned and terrified, wearing only his boxer briefs and a DE LA CRUZ CONTRACTING t-shirt. 

Monty dropped the blanket and, with fumbling hands, prised Justin’s frightened grip from the front of his shirt.

“Dad-“

Disgust swung suddenly and frighteningly into rage across Big Monty’s face, and Justin felt his flight instinct flood through him all at once, smashing through the lingering dullness of alcohol and all the red flags his pain receptors were waving for his attention to consume him entirely. Before he could form the conscious thought to move, Monty surged forwards, slamming the door closed even as his father attempted to block it. He shoved his shoulder into the door, struggling for traction in bare feet as the handle rattled from the other side, Big Monty roaring with inarticulate rage. Justin was caught between moving forwards to help barricade the entrance – there was no lock, not one on their side of the door, anyway - and escaping through the window. He hesitated, and turned uncertainly to help, but Monty shook his head insistently.

“Go,” he said, turning to place his back to the door, even as it clattered in its frame, battered from the other side.

“I fucking knew it,” Big Monty bellowed, slamming furiously against the door as he veered into venomous, rapid fire Spanish, none of which Justin could understand, although the shame that flushed across Monty’s face at the words was unmissable. Torn, Justin stepped toward the other boy again, preparing to brace the door with both hands, but Monty’s expression shifted just as quickly as his father’s had, disgrace twisting into anger within the space of a breath.

“The fuck is wrong with you? Go!” Monty snapped harshly, pinning Justin with a condescending stare, as if he was not the same boy who had brought him a spare lunch the day before so that he wouldn’t go another day hungry, as if Justin were the most useless idiot he’d ever had the misfortune of crossing paths with. Justin shook his head, searching for the right thing to do.

“Dude-“

Monty’s expression was so cold that, for a moment, he looked like Bryce.

“_Get the fuck out, Foley_.”__

_ _Scared and a little hurt, Justin relented, turning to snatch the basketball shorts he’d tossed onto the cabinet the night before and yank them on. They were at least a size too big for him, the elastic waistband barely clinging to his hips as he bent to reach for his letterman jacket, crumpled beneath the blanket at his feet. Monty grunted, slipping forwards as his father surged against the other side of the door, battering it open a couple of inches, and Justin glimpsed a strip of red-faced rage burning so furiously hot that he flinched away. Careful to clear his fingers of the gap, Monty shoved back in the other direction, throwing Justin an incredulous look as the door slammed back into the frame._ _

_ _“Fuck, man, I’ll bring your shit to school, just fucking go!”_ _

_ _Frightened and torn and, beneath that, stung in a way he couldn’t even explain to himself by Monty’s rejection, Justin abandoned his clothes to snatch his shoes and climbed onto the bed. Not bothering to be quiet about it this time, he shoved open the window, which squeaked and rattled, and attempted to slam down across the back of his head when he forgot to hold it open as he leaned out to toss his shoes ahead of him. Holding the pane open with one hand, he climbed awkwardly out, the drop to the hard, patchy lawn on the other side of the window far less forgiving than the bed they’d clambered onto last night. The ground was uncomfortably hard and hot beneath his bare feet, baked by the rising summer sun. Before he let the window fall closed, Monty called out to him and Justin paused, already half turned left, toward the front of the house._ _

_ _“That way,” Monty tipped his head to the right, indicating the rear of the property. He winced, straining to keep the door closed, then added, loudly. “Run. He won’t make it to the front door before you.”_ _

_ _Justin nodded once, then in one fluid motion, let the window fall from one hand and stooped to swipe up his shoes with the other. Already at a dead run, he heard the clattering behind him fall suddenly away, followed by retreating cursing and heavy footsteps as Big Monty headed for the front of the house to cut him off. _ _

_ _Justin spotted a narrow area of the rear wooden fence, near to the corner of the next property, where the paint was worn across the support beams and at the top edge of the palings, as if scuffed away by a repeated pattern of feet and hands over time. Using the patches as a guide, his shoes dangling by the laces from one hand, he leapt at the fence, pushing upwards with his bare feet and grasping the top of the palings where they had been worn soft. He didn’t look to see where he would fall on the other side, his attention caught in the moment that he teetered on top of the fence by Big Monty appearing at the side of the house with a furious shout, spotting Justin at the opposite end of the yard and realising he had been tricked. Fear thudding like a deep drumbeat in his chest as the man turned and ran toward him, Justin simply let go of the fence, thrusting himself backwards, and allowed himself to tumble blindly to the other side. _ _

_ _“Shit,” Justin murmured, winded and rattled, wincing as he attempted to roll over and get his feet underneath him. He had landed in a not particularly well-kept garden bed, although mercifully he had managed to miss the unruly, prickly bougainvillea growing to his left and the cement cherub birth bath in to his right. The fence above him, painted dark forest green, had almost identical wear patterns on the opposite side. All of those bruises and aches from the night before seemed to catch up with him as he scrambled to his knees, reaching for the shoes that had flung from his grasp. _ _

_ _“Justin Foley?”_ _

_ _Panic speared through Justin and his head shot up to pinpoint the source of the voice. The yard was small and a little untidy, hemmed in by overgrown flowery garden beds on three sides of a lawn that could have done with a trim, a poorly maintained wooden play house, once painted white and pink but now faded and mostly grey standing sadly in the far corner. Straight ahead, at the side of the house, he could see a car port and, past the aging sedan parked there, the street. In the middle of the yard, stretched out on a blue plastic lawn chair, a blonde girl dressed only in a bathing suit and, judging by the shimmer of her skin under the summer morning sun, tanning lotion, sat up to peer at him. _ _

_ _“Um, hey,” he grinned awkwardly, reaching for that flirtatious charm as he unsteadily climbed to his feet. The girl sat up, one hand pressed to her chest to secure the loose halter ties of her bathing suit, and lifted the oversized sunglasses she was wearing. Justin realised he recognised her – Chloe Rice, one of the girls from the cheer squad. Her brows drew together in a confused frown as she looked from his face to the fence and then the company logo printed on the front of his shirt. _ _

_ _A dull sting of anxiety at the thought that she would tell Jessica about him tumbling uninvited into her yard was swiped aside by the sudden crash of Big Monty reaching the other side of the fence. Justin didn’t wait to see if the man was capable of climbing it. Raising one hand in a cheery salute, he dashed past Chloe and through the car port, squeezing past the old Camry to burst out into the street. _ _

_ _After a half second’s pause to tug his sneakers on to his bare feet and pull up the shorts that threatened to fall from his hips, Justin picked a direction that seemed like it might lead to Liberty, and ran._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... sleepover wasn't such a good idea. 
> 
> I've extended the chapter limit out to 11 because I have zero self control and couldn't keep the last few sections down in word count, so three more parts to finish this up.
> 
> Thanks, as always, for reading and commenting. 
> 
> And a belated Happy Halloween :)


	9. 9

Justin realised, once he reached Liberty ten minutes late for History, that not only did he not have his bag and school supplies – they were still in Monty’s Jeep parked beside the Blue Spot – he had also left his phone in the pocket of his varsity jacket on the floor of the other boy’s bedroom. Ms Baxter had been thoroughly unimpressed when he had practically tumbled through the classroom door, sweating and huffing, looking around at the surprised faces that turned his way. Although he had mostly expected it, disappointment and concern yanked his heart down into his stomach at the realisation that Monty was not there.

“So nice of you to join us, Justin,” Ms Baxter cocked an irritated eyebrow at his dishevelled appearance and empty hands. “You’ll be needing to borrow a text book, it would seem?”

He accepted the school-issue text book and a few sheets of loose-leaf paper, hesitating when she offered him a pen from the jar of spares on her desk – the same one he had borrowed, chewed and lost three days earlier. She peered at him curiously, her gaze trailing from his torn expression to his t-shirt as he forced himself to accept the pen.

“I don’t suppose you know whether Mr de la Cruz will be gracing us with his presence this morning?” she asked tartly, nodding toward the clock mounted above the door. “He also seems to be having some trouble getting out of bed on time today.”

Justin shrugged, muttered something non-committal, and found a desk where he had a view of the clock. Hunched forward over the text book, which Ms Baxter flicked to the correct page when she walked past and noticed that he had, apparently without realising, opened it several chapters ahead of where he should be; he checked the time every few minutes, bouncing his heel beneath his chair with growing frustration until the girl at the desk next to him threw him a dark look and hissed at him to stop. Justin managed a vaguely apologetic smile – poorly executed, based on the irritated frown she offered in response – and started flicking the chewed pen between his fingers instead.

When Ms Baxter released them, what felt like a lifetime later, Justin abandoned the text book and the loose-leaf, entirely blank except for the date he had scrawled at the top of the first sheet, and bolted from the room with the chewed pen clutched in one hand. He looked up and down the hallway, half hoping to see the other boy waiting for him, but it was empty aside from a maintenance worker painting a doorframe at the far end. Cursing under his breath, Justin took a left and half jogged to the hallway junction at the other end of the building where his assigned locker had been ahead of summer break. No one. Anxiety churning uncomfortably in his stomach, Justin darted around the corner, where Monty’s locker had been. The other boy wasn’t there, but he spotted Luke on the opposite side of the hallway, head bowed to talk to another boy, almost two feet shorter than he was, in undertones. Luke’s expression registered mild alarm when he noticed Justin approaching, and the other boy cast a panicked look over his shoulder, making a hasty exit with something tucked into one hand that Justin couldn’t see and didn’t care enough to identify. 

Luke smiled at him, open and friendly, the default setting that made him easy to like and easy to dismiss. 

“Hey, du-“

“You seen Monty?” Justin cut him off, the pen tapping an anxious pattern against his leg. When Luke blinked at him, apparently confused, Justin barely resisted the urge to swear at the other boy. “Monty,” he repeated. “You know, yay high-“ he held the pen roughly level with his own head, “-plaid shirts, freckles, gay jokes, would probably be punching somebody or maybe wearing glasses?”

Luke seemed like the kind of kid who might be fooled by Superman’s Clark Kent disguise. Justin wouldn’t put it past him to not recognise Monty if he saw him in unfamiliar eyewear. 

Predictably, poor, sweet, juiced-up Luke just looked more puzzled, his eyes narrowing in a frown.

“No, I haven’t seen him,” he answered slowly, eyeing Justin’s t-shirt, then asked, uncertainly, “Have you?”

Justin turned away without answering, wracking his brain for alternative options. He could check the weight room, maybe, but that was where Luke had probably come from – judging by his workout clothes and the faint whiff of gym socks. He could try the locker rooms – he remembered with a pang how desperately he needed a shower, even more so after running most of the way to school – but again, that assumed that Monty had headed for Liberty, or that he had made it out of the house at all. 

Justin felt claustrophobic fear closing vice-like on his chest, tightening his airways so convincingly that he had to resist the urge to gasp in a lungful of air as he shoved open the external doors and burst outside. His mother had cycled through boyfriends and even one or two fiancés over the years, and most of them hadn’t had an issue raising a hand to her or to Justin, sometimes even at her bidding, if he was trying her patience or just as an alternative to hurting her. Probably, most of them had considered him a nuisance at best, but none of them had ever hated him, not so strongly that it was undeniable, not so purely that it burned up every other emotion or attachment and was all they had left for him. 

Not the way the Monty’s dad hated his son.

And Justin had run. He had left Monty with that hate. Alone.

Wishing regretfully that Jess wasn’t so far away – he could use the comforting reassurance of her warm embrace – or that Bryce was around – as reluctant as Justin was to admit it, he always knew what to do – Justin headed for the batting cages, hoping numbly that if Monty wasn’t there, at least Zach or Scott might be, or they might have heard from him. Maybe, he thought, clutching the pen bruisingly tight, they could go back to Monty’s house together, even though he wasn’t sure he would be able to find his way back to it – he had taken at least three wrong turns on his way to school, even though Monty would probably hate them for it – hate him for even thinking of it, even though this had been going on for years - a long, consistent procession of bruises and cuts and bandages and plaster casts and absences, and no one had ever said or done anything, except maybe for Bryce, who took his payment in unanswered taunts and indebted favours and unquestioning loyalty. 

“By all means, take your sweet-ass time, Foley.”

Justin, walking along the rear perimeter of the back quad toward the baseball field, shielded his eyes and craned his head back. Monty cocked an eyebrow at him, standing with his elbows propped on the barrier fencing around the edge of the seating area. Behind him, Justin’s duffle bag was on the table they had shared three lunch-breaks in a row, his varsity jacket tossed over the top. Although he tried to contain his relief, Justin took the stairs two at a time, hurrying to meet the other boy, who stood casually if a little impatiently, still wearing the Liberty tee and cropped sweats he had slept in, his bare feet jammed into a pair of sneakers and a baseball cap tugged on to shadow his face, which Justin peered at much less inconspicuously than he meant to, enough to make Monty squirm uncomfortably.

“Your shit’s all in the bag,” he said, waving a hand at the duffle. He pulled Justin’s mobile phone from the pocket of his sweats and handed it to him, saying, “Your ma’s been calling you.”

And then, with apparently nothing more to say, Monty turned to leave.

“Dude,” Justin started to reach to stop him but, remembering the way that the other boy had bristled defensively at attempted contact the night before, hesitated, stepping to block his path instead. Monty, frowning with frustration, looked down at his outstretched hand.

“The fuck, Justy? I said I don’t want it back. Just keep it.”

Justin realised he was still holding the chewed pen Monty had loaned him at the start of the week and shook his head, stepping sideways again when the other boy made another attempt to skirt around him.

“C’mon, man, what the fuck?” Justin felt the pleading creep into his voice and let it, despite that it drew discomfort into Monty’s expression, which he tried to mask over with familiar, well-practiced anger. “Can we talk about what happened?” Monty was already shaking his head in response, but Justin pressed on. “How’d you get out?” Are you-“ he choked on the question, hated that it wasn’t easier to ask, that Monty looked somehow even more uncomfortable knowing what he was trying to ask than he felt asking it. “-are you, like, alright?”

Monty shrugged, and picked the easiest question.

“I went out the front while he chased you down the back,” he said, and Justin wondered whether he should be annoyed that the other boy had essentially used him as bait to facilitate his own escape, or pride that he trusted Justin’s physical ability to have made it to safety in time, to have been able to shoulder a narrow exit for both of them. Mostly, he just felt sick that any kind of escape plot had been necessary at all. Monty readjusted his baseball cap uneasily, wincing at the way the seam rested across the laceration at his temple. Other than the purple bruising that edged the wound, and a hint of shadow around the edges of his eye socket, he seemed entirely – thankfully – fine. 

Justin’s phone vibrated in his hand, and he glanced at it distractedly. A picture message from Jess. Three missed calls from his mother. A text from Bryce, brief enough that he could read it from the push notification.

_the kids have fun when daddy’s not around, huh? ;)_

Monty took advantage of his distraction, moving to edge around the opposite side of the table.

“Wait-“ Justin insisted, making a point of powering down the screen to dismiss the push notifications, an effort to impress upon Monty that he had his attention and wanted the same in exchange. The other boy rolled his eyes.

“What, Foley? I brought you your shit…”

Justin felt like he was grasping for something he couldn’t even identify himself. What exactly was it that he wanted from Monty? Reassurance? Company? Comfort? Forgiveness? It felt like all of those things and none of them, and he had no idea how to articulate any of it. Bryce never made him say what he needed. They had known each other for so long – he had been looking after Justin for so long – that all of their cues had long ago grown into something unspoken; a look, a tilt of the head or a shift in a facial expression, a tone of voice, sometimes even just the absence of one of those things, and they understood each other perfectly. Bryce always just knew and provided, not without cost, but without request. 

This was different. But then, things between Bryce and Monty had always been different, too. 

Maybe it was an inability on Monty’s part to understand or convey anything with subtlety, or maybe it was because Bryce just wanted him and everyone else to know who was in control, who did the giving and who did the taking, who had the need and the debt, and who was at which end of the leash. He made Monty ask for what he wanted – what he needed – as if it wasn’t plain, sometimes even more obvious than what Justin required, because the other boy had always been an easy read. Mostly, he expressed himself in varying degrees of anger; the more furious he was, the more his life was getting out of control and the more assistance he was going to need coiling all of that destructive rage back inside and tamping it down into something manageable. 

But Bryce made him say it, and then pay for it. 

And so, the other boy wasn’t accustomed to the reading or reacting to the needs of anyone other than Bryce. If Justin wanted something – needed to know something – he was going to have to come right out and ask it.

“I just-“ Justin struggled for the right question to ask. “What’re you-“ One that wouldn’t result in Monty ripping his head off. “Don’t… don’t you have to go to class, every day? Or your dad won’t pay you for working weekends?”

Monty laughed, but his eyes were flat and black, sharklike.

“Funny enough, today he’s not that interested in whether or not I show up here,” he said, then raised his brows. “That it, Foley? I’ve got some shit I need to sort out.”

Part of Justin wanted the other boy to go – at least on his own, he knew where he stood, he knew that he had only his own resourcefulness to rely on, had to consider only himself when he made decisions. He had his clothes and his school supplies, his phone, presumably the stack of protein bars Monty had brought him the day before. He could go to the locker rooms and shower before a session of math in the afternoon, maybe talk to Jess for a while, listen to the smile in her voice and picture the gold threading through her hair courtesy of the Florida sunshine as she talked about the beach and the road and maybe how she missed him, while her mother tried to separate her bickering brothers in the background. He could call his ma and make sure that she was alright.

Maybe, but-

Somehow, after more than twenty-four hours straight in each other’s company, he felt untethered without the other boy in a way he hadn’t felt without Bryce before. It was as if, between him and Bryce, a chain existed that would never break, that could span any distance, weather any passing of time. With Monty, it was different. It felt as if the boy were both a burning brand and the salve – being in contact with him hurt, but being apart from him felt as if it would hurt more. 

“OK, well…” Justin searched for the right thing to ask, and came up with nothing better than what he plainly wanted to know. “Can I call you later?”

It had been the wrong thing. 

Monty’s face screwed up in scowl and his shoulders went tight with discomfort. Underneath the shifting collar of his Tigers tee, a bluish bruise where the safety belt had bitten into the curve of his neck flashed. 

“What, like you’re my fucking girlfriend or something?” he asked scornfully, and when Justin started to open his mouth, to try to explain, Monty’s hands wound into fists and the words seemed to tear out of him, uncontrolled and trailing furious fire. “I’m not Bryce, OK? I can’t look after you. I can’t fucking look after myself,” he seemed to be searching Justin’s face for understanding, anger only growing when Justin just stared back at him, stunned. “I don’t even know where the fuck I’m going to sleep tonight, so I got nothing for you, understand? I don’t have any more money, I don’t have any more food, I don’t have any more beer, you can keep the _fucking_ pen, just-“ He cut himself off there, as if he had physically taken hold of the string of words unreeling from him and yanked them to a halt before they carried him away any further. His jaw clenched and unclenched, and he forced himself to release the tight fists his hands had coiled into. “Just leave me the fuck alone, Justy.”

Stung, Justin opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again without speaking. Instead, he simply nodded wordlessly, and allowed Monty to walk away. 

Justin tried not to think about it, after that. About where the other boy had gone, when he wasn’t even sure where he was going to go at the end of the day himself, or about what might happen when Monty eventually went home, when he didn’t know what would happen when he went home, either. He showered in the locker rooms and changed into fresh clothes. He texted back and forth with Jess, and even shot a quick text to Zach, asking how his dad was feeling, before he committed to an afternoon of algebra. 

It took a level of focus that seemed to physically sap his energy, but he concentrated on the equations until there was no space left for anything else. Until, with a little burst of pride as the teacher explained the working and the correct answers on the blackboard, he realised that some of them actually made sense. By the late afternoon, after staying back half an hour to work through one formula he hadn’t been able to deconstruct, Justin felt tired but bolstered.

As he walked out across the car park, he tugged his phone from his pocket to return his mother’s calls, and found a string of texts from Zach, sent in his typical staccato fashion, almost like a haiku of laced together statements and broken, stuttering sentences.

_dads doing alright. sleeping, mostly. the painkillers are pretty strong. hes comfortable. thats the important thing_

_also_

_this is kind of weird, but_

_scott was here earlier and he said something i thought i should tell you_

_coz youre doing classes together this summer rite?_

_anyway_

_monty got arrested_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are getting a little less rosy for these two boys, but hey, if we look on the bright side - I shoehorned in one of my favourites (yay, Luke!)
> 
> The last two parts are written and currently going through beta checking (thanks, beekitties!! You're a gem!) so they will be up in the next couple of weeks.
> 
> I'm making a start on the next couple of fics, so keep letting me know if there's anything you've wondered about from the show or anything you'd be interested to read, and we'll see if we can work it in :)
> 
> Thanks as always for reading and commenting x


	10. 10

Justin could admit, he panicked. 

In less than four hours since they had last spoken, Monty had been arrested. While he didn’t doubt the other boy’s ability to seek out trouble, even when he knew he shouldn’t, even when there couldn’t possibly be any to be found, Justin knew that it had to be because of the Bronco. Selfishly – guiltily – he felt relief that it hadn’t been him who had been picked up by the sheriff’s department, and then fear that the other boy would roll over on him to save himself. Then, he took both of those thoughts, shoved them far away where they belonged, and got on his phone.

The first three texts to Monty went unanswered.

So did the first call.

Justin called Zach next.

“I don’t know the details, man,” Zach said, speaking with that strange hushed calmness that was the only universally acceptable tone of voice within the walls of a hospital. “Scotty just said he saw his Jeep pulled over on Nielsen Avenue, and the cops were putting him in the back of their car. I guess sometime around two, maybe?”

The next two texts, and the second call to Monty, garnered no response.

Scott didn’t answer his call, but replied to his voice-to-text a few minutes later.

_hey man. out with the folks. was just driving past so dont know what happened. standalls dad had him in cuffs. i texted him but no reply yet_

Justin considered whether or not he should contact Alex. He truly did not want to, picturing the other boy’s expression when he watched him and Jess together, that frustratingly painful pining that made Justin feel guilty and angry all at once. It was bad enough that Bryce let Alex hang around all the time, making stupid jokes that none of them understood and telling them how juvenile their bullshit was, like they were these base, heedless creatures and he was somehow better, knew more, was owed more, was owed Jessica’s affection, in particular; bad enough that Bryce didn’t listen when Justin tried to tell him that this was part of Alex’s plan – that if he could be more like Justin, then maybe he could usurp Justin, maybe Jess would take him back – and Bryce had just snorted in amusement and waved him off. 

Against his better judgement, Justin sent Alex a text – there was no way he would give him the smug satisfaction of calling – to ask what his dad had wanted with Monty. He regretted it as soon as he read the reply.

_how the hell should i know?_

“Fuck you, Alex,” Justin snapped angrily, entirely to himself.

It was getting late and Justin knew that he couldn’t stay on school property much longer. The parking lot was empty except for a handful of cars belonging to teachers and custodians; he couldn’t even remember when he had last seen another student, everyone else who had someplace to be leaving while Justin lingered, perched on the curb at the edge of a parking space with his knees drawn up, his phone dangling from one hand, defiantly blank-screened and silent. 

As he always did in moments of indecision, Justin thought about calling Bryce. 

Once upon a time, he had told himself that it was a logical instinct. Bryce was older and more resourceful, clever and willing to help others – especially him, and especially in exchange for the unspoken debt his assistance incurred. Justin wasn’t sure exactly when he had begun to realise that wasn’t quite it. It was part of the drive he felt to reach out to the other boy – but not all of it. It was the practical solution he needed, but not the emotional solution he craved, and that Bryce always gave. Bryce’s love and protection were a comfort, as addictive as any other drug. Even if the other boy didn’t offer any answers, didn’t know how or care enough to help, knowing he was there, that he would always take the call even if it was just to amuse himself with the misfortune of others, was more than anyone in Justin’s life had ever offered him. More than he could expect from his mother, or any of his other friends. 

On some level, Justin knew that Bryce wouldn’t help him with this, and he certainly wouldn’t help Monty.

The most he could expect was a chuckle of wry amusement, maybe a ‘good luck with that’, before Bryce clicked off to go back to drinking or fucking or snorting coke or whatever the fuck rich people did in their beachside mansions. 

But, still.

Justin hesitated, chewing on the corner of his thumbnail, then swiped open the screen of his phone.

Before he could navigate to Bryce’s number, the phone began vibrating with an incoming call. The swell of relief in his chest deflated when the screen displayed the caller as “ma”.

Justin pinched the bridge of his nose, allowing himself a long, slow breath, then tapped to connect the call.

“Hey, Ma.”

He agreed to go home. 

His mother was in one of her manic moods when he arrived there, a couple of hours later, having walked most of the way and hitched the rest, another eight unreciprocated texts and three unanswered calls to Monty made along the way. Justin had to wonder if he was being unreasonable. He hated being forced into this side of a relationship - platonic, romantic or otherwise. He wished that he could be confident and aloof, the way guys like Bryce and Scott and even Jeff were; that he could be the one who played hard to get, grabbing that power and holding on to it with both hands, teasing with delayed responses and dismissive replies, if he bothered at all. He had always gotten too attached, too quickly, and he resented it – wished he could cut that part of himself out and burn it. Justin had spent so many years living at the whim of others that, even after days of no contact, when she finally noticed his absence, it took everything in him to dodge his mother’s calls, every emotional drive railing against his practical senses. The only person in his life that he allowed to string him along was Bryce, and Monty had said it himself -

He wasn’t Bryce.

His mother had money – not a lot, she had spent a majority of it on food, and not the kind of food that could be cooked or kept or spread out over several meals and sustained, mostly snacks and junk food, the kind of salt and sugar that might stave off cravings for a little while, but only just, and not for long. Seth was nowhere to be seen – Justin didn’t ask for an explanation and she didn’t offer one – so they stood together in the cramped, untidy kitchen while she boiled frankfurts in a pot on the stove, talking animatedly and prodding him in the ribs like she used to when he was small and pouting, grinning at him until he couldn’t help but smile back. Somehow, when she was like this, it sometimes felt worse than when she ignored him, or pushed him away, or pushed Seth or whichever jerk she had attached herself to toward him, channelled their anger or frustration or just bored, drug fuelled violence in his direction so that she didn’t have to deal with it.

When she was like this, Justin was almost able to forget all of those other times. All of the nights lying in his bedroom alone in the apartment or on a stranger’s couch or on the back seat of a car, before he could even feed or clean or fend for himself and for years and years after, not knowing if she was ever coming back. All of the bruises, rarely at her hand but sometimes, and those hurt the worst. All of the terror of finding her collapsed on the bathroom floor or beside her bed or in the kitchen doorway, glassy eyed with vomit trailing a putrid line across her cheek to pool in her hair, and thinking this time would be it – this time, she was dead and he was truly alone. All the conflicted fear of lying about why he didn’t have a winter jacket or how he forgot to bring his lunch to school or why he told a girl in his third-grade class that he hoped her dad would come into her room at night and hurt her in a moment of vengeful anger because she had deliberately tipped the cup of water that they had been using to clean their paintbrushes across his painting. 

If his mother noticed the surreptitious glances Justin aimed at his phone every few minutes, she didn’t mention it, piling the frankfurts onto a plate and squirting more than what could be considered a generous amount of ketchup all over them. They ate in front of the television – mixing in potato chips and pretzels and slices of white bread spread thick with imitation butter – and she didn’t ask him where he had been, where he had slept or what he had eaten, where the bruise on neck from the Bronco’s safety belt or the clothes that didn’t belong to him that he stuffed into the laundry hamper had come from. Where he went and what happened to him when he disappeared from her life was not something she had ever concerned herself with. 

Sometime after sunrise, Justin blinked himself awake and realised they had both dozed off in front of the television, open packets of snack food, some empty and some barely touched, going stale on the coffee table next to a still half-full plate of cold frankfurts, wasted. His mother was curled up against the opposite arm of the couch, childlike in the way that she drew her knees to her stomach and tucked her folded arms to her chest, her hands curled beneath her chin. He scrubbed a hand roughly over his face and looked down at his phone resting on his chest – shit, it was already after seven, his phone had lay, silent and still, all night – _shit_.

Stumbling with sleep, Justin shoved himself up from the couch and trotted unsteadily into his bedroom. Part of him always hesitated at the threshold when he came home after time away, half expecting the room to be torn apart, his scant belongings smashed and scattered in a tantrum of vengeance, or maybe just gone, a clear message that he wasn’t needed or welcome back. But it was never the case. No one ever touched anything, because why would they? They didn’t care enough to bother. 

Perching on the edge of his bed – had the old single mattress always felt this comfortable? He could have sworn it was lumpy with broken springs and age, but compared to the floor of Monty’s bedroom and especially the cold ground of the nights before, it felt amazing – he flicked his thumb across the screen of his phone. No responses to any of his texts. No missed calls.

Fuck it. 

He dialled Monty again, and was almost shocked when the call was answered on the second ring.

“Why are you so fucking obsessed with me?”

His tone was partly bored, mostly amused but also maybe a little frustrated or, was it accusatory? It was difficult to tell - he must have had the call on speaker, his voice clear but distanced. Justin could hear muffled white noise in the background, maybe a ceiling fan or air conditioning. He felt awash with frustration and relief in equal parts, and tugged one across to mask the other.

“Dude, what the fuck? Scott told Zach you got fucking arrested, and I’ve been trying to reach you-“

“Yeah, no shit,” Monty cut over him with a chuckle of annoyance, laced with goading. “Even your best friend Alex texted that you were looking for me.”

Justin waited, but the other boy didn’t offer anything further – no hint of what had happened or where he was, if he was alright or whether Justin should be concerned, for him or for himself. Not for the first time in the last five days, Justin was reminded why he didn’t normally bother with anything more complex than tolerance for the other boy. Firstly, that in itself took a hell of a lot of energy and could, on occasion, be an almost insurmountable task. And secondly, importantly, because he only had it within him to take so much flippant rejection from the people he became emotionally attached to, and the small part of that quota not taken up by Bryce was reserved for his mother. Nerves fried by five consecutive nights of strung out anxiety, Justin had nothing left to respond to Monty’s disregard for his care with other than exhausted anger. 

“You know what?” Justin said, acid edging his words. “Fuck you. Tell me where you are.”

Monty paused, and in that space, Justin could hear a familiar double-tap pattern of tinny, distant gunshots. Finally, the other boy chuckled.

“Nah, Justy. Fuck _you_.”

The call disconnected. 

That was OK. Justin knew exactly where to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearly there! One more part and it's all done.
> 
> I was mean and ended on a bit of a cliffhanger last time - let me know if it went in the direction you were expecting?
> 
> Thanks again to beekitties, my very much appreciated and trusted Justin Foley advisor and beta! 
> 
> I've started planning/drafting the next fic, which has grown from what I thought would be a single post of small scenes to a 25-part series of connected one-shots. I plan on picking up some threads from this fic and also imagining some explanations and scenes we didn't get to see in s1 and s2 - hopefully it will be fun!
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting x


	11. 11

The Walker’s estate was quiet, the regular staff who tended to their every whim sent away to spend time with their own families while their employers were travelling for the summer. Justin walked up the driveway with his hands jammed in his pockets, accustomed by this point to feeling as though he were trespassing in the upmarket neighbourhood. He was used to suspicious stares, like the one aimed his way by the elderly woman who was tending to a tidy row of pure white and apricot standard rose bushes on the other side of the street. Her pruning shears and gardening gloves were perfectly matched to the sash of her designer straw hat, which she peered at him from beneath the brim of as he skirted around the front bumper of the familiar Jeep Wrangler parked against the curb like a dirty stain in the otherwise pristine street. 

Justin bypassed the main house, following the path around the side of the property and past the pool, perfectly clean and sparkling, even though there was no one home to use or appreciate it, and the cleaners that came by once a week would have seemed to anyone else like a needless expense. The plantation blinds in the windows of the pool house were half-shuttered, so he couldn’t see in from outside, but the door was propped open, and it was bright enough inside that he didn’t have to squint against the change of light the way Monty did when he spotted Justin’s silhouette in the doorway.

“You are fucking _relentless_,” Monty muttered, pronouncing the term as if he had seen it on a Word of the Day Calendar and was trying it for the first time; like it was something he had heard said about himself before, and wasn’t quite certain of the pronunciation or context. 

Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to the television and Desert Duty, his thumbs moving with practiced precision over the buttons and joysticks of the game controller in his hands. Justin stepped into the room cautiously, as if he were approaching a brutalised animal which, despite his casual slouch and disinterested expression, was exactly what the other boy looked like.

“Jesus, Monty,” Justin breathed, feeling all at once like if he didn’t sit down, he might fall down. His pulse fluttered uncomfortably in his throat and residual fear, far too late and vicarious to be useful, felt like lead in his stomach. 

The other boy flicked a glance in his direction, scrunched his nose at the miserably guilty expression painted all over Justin’s face, then winced as he turned his eyes back toward the television, discomfort tightening his previously relaxed, if not slightly cautious, posture. 

“Don’t fucking look at me like that,” Monty sighed, shaking his head. And Justin wished he could have complied, but _fuck_.

Justin could come up with no better term to describe what had been done to Monty than utter destruction. His right eye, lightly coloured with residual bruising from the blow to his head the last time he had seen him, was ringed so darkly with black and purple that it had swollen most of the way closed, while the left was stained red with broken vessels and slung underneath with a deep blue crescent behind the lens of his glasses. The side of his nose, the edge of his jaw, his cheekbone and forehead were torn with grazes, already scabbed over, and his lips were split, top and bottom, with a ragged red line. The Tigers t-shirt that he was wearing was different to the one Justin had last seen him in, and while there were scratches and bruises on his arms – Justin recognised the familiar marks as defensive wounds, he had worn them himself often enough – there was no discolouration on his hands. 

Whoever had hurt him, Monty hadn’t hurt them back.

“Fuck me,” Justin moved cautiously closer, his heartbeat heavy and sluggish against his ribs and a sour taste in the back of his throat as he took in the damage. “What happened?”

Monty shrugged, nonchalance a scant and insufficient mask for all of the pain that he attempted to hide beneath it.

“Someone recognised me the other night, I guess. Called in a tip off to the cops.” He looked at Justin directly, one eye bloodied and the other mostly gone behind swelling and bruising and his glasses, which must have hurt to wear but Justin felt sick at the idea of him trying to apply contact lenses in that state. “They know I was with someone else. I wasn’t driving.”

Justin felt a kick of terror low in his gut. He trusted Monty – he thought he did, sort of? – but the other boy had been avoiding him, and Justin knew well enough from his own playbook that avoidance could flag a guilty conscience.

“What’d you tell them?”

Monty shook his head, looking back to the television as his avatar began taking fire.

“Nothing,” he said, his right index finger twitching that familiar double-tap pattern as he took out enemy gunmen hiding in narrow overhead vantage points, their pre-recorded voices wailing as their bodies tumbled dramatically to the ground. “Said I was drunk, met some people down at the pier, figured one of them owned the car when they said they wanted to take it for a drive.”

“And they believed that?” Justin pressed. 

Monty scoffed. 

“Nope. But what evidence have they got otherwise?” Monty cocked an eyebrow at him. “You got a criminal record, Justy? They got your prints on file?” The corner of his mouth tugged up in a sort of morbid amusement. “They had mine, but they’re not gonna find them on the steering wheel.”

Justin felt a nauseating mixture of guilt, fear and relief. He had tangled with the sheriff’s department plenty – they were called often enough to domestic disturbances when his mother and her current boyfriend or dealer or some other drifter or hanger on she had attached herself to or allowed to sink their hooks into her life and his by association, grew tired and frustrated at each other, and resorted to their baser instincts to sort out their differences. He had been picked up for a few minor transgressions when he had been younger – shoplifting, petty vandalism, disorderly conduct, loitering. Nothing so serious that charges had ever been laid. Nothing since he had been old enough that they might bother to record his fingerprints. 

But his hands all over the interior and wrapped around the steering wheel of the Bronco wasn’t the only evidence that placed him there.

“Did they take your phone?” he asked, his gaze flicking to where it lay on the coffee table next to an open can of soda from the pool house bar fridge. “The video…“

The words faded as his mouth went suddenly dry. Justin didn’t want to think it – tried to banish the thought as soon as it crept unbidden across the back of his mind, unwilling to entertain it. 

But there was this – 

What if it had been Bryce who had made the tip off?

_the kids have fun when daddy’s not around, huh? ;)_

Had Bryce sent Monty a response to the video of them joyriding together, joking – or not joking, not really, because the enjoyment had been genuine – about how much fun they were having without him? Or was _this_ the response? Not meant just for Monty, but for both of them, a warning framed up by the text message, which would probably have been lost on Monty, but which Justin understood with icy clarity. They could be friends, but not better friends than they were to him. They could have fun, but not at his expense, or without his permission. They could support each other, but not in a way that removed their reliance on him. They could tease him, but there would be consequences.

And this was it.

All of this, the result of Bryce making sure they understood the point he meant to make. The point that they would never escape their reliance on him, and even if they did, they could never repay their debt. The point that he owned them, and what they did, and what they were, even to each other. That he was undeniable. 

_That he was the point._

“I asked them if I could call my dad to pick me up from the station before they took my phone, and I deleted it,” Monty said. If he recognised the horror of realisation dawning in Justin’s expression, he didn’t mention it, even when Justin felt the colour draining from his face as the other boy added, as a reassurance, “Brycey’s the only one with a copy, now.”

Justin didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to even consider it, because Bryce was his best friend and he trusted that he wouldn’t hurt him this way. But he had to admit – he hadn’t been hurt, not really – and the crafting of the message was exactly Bryce’s style, personalised to the way that each of them understood their place in the king’s court. Justin, he manipulated with guilt and shame. Monty, he controlled with the language the boy was most familiar with and understood fluently – violence. 

Sick, Justin told himself that Bryce didn’t care enough about either of them to go out of his way to call through an anonymous tip to the sheriff’s department, placed the thought like a padlock on any further contemplation on the matter, and shoved it into a corner in the back of his mind with all of the other things that he didn’t dare think about. Unsteadied, he crossed the room and sat at the other end of the couch, feeling uncomfortably close and, at the same time, painfully distant from the other boy. 

“So, your dad did this?” he asked, unable to articulate the brutalisation any more descriptively without swallowing against his own gag reflex, a sweeping up and down look at the other boy from the corner of his eye indicating his meaning. “Because of the Bronco?”

Monty looked puzzled that Justin would have made any such connection.

“He could give a shit about the Bronco,” he said, pausing with a mildly irritated sigh when he took a kill-shot to the head and the television screen went red, reflecting gore across the lenses of his glasses. “I’ll probably just get community service. Not like it’d be the first time.” Gingerly, he slouched back into the couch, and fidgeted with the game controller to avoid Justin’s gaze. “He was pissed about yesterday.”

Justin frowned, confused.

“What’s he so hung up about you having people stay over, for?” he asked. “I didn’t use up all the hot water or raid your kitchen or anything.”

Monty turned his head to look at Justin directly, lips parted in mute surprise that the other boy was genuinely and completely ignorant to the source of his father’s rage at having found them together the previous morning and, without the means to explain, simply shook his head, leaning forward to pluck the second gaming controller from the coffee table and shove it into Justin’s hands. Justin accepted it wordlessly, realising that he had missed a cue but unable to identify what it had been, or how to retrieve the moment now passed. Instead, he looked around the familiar pool house while he waited for the game controller to power on. 

“You got a key to this place or something?”

Monty snorted, incredulous.

“If Bryce was going to give anyone a key, he’d give you a hundred copies before he’d give one to me,” he said, his tone matter of fact. He selected a new game from the menu on the screen. “The Walker’s are like any other rich assholes. They can replace their shit, so they don’t always bother making sure they lock it up when they’re not around.”

Justin felt a tiny sting of irritation that Monty apparently knew, through trial and error, he assumed, that Bryce didn’t always properly secure the pool house and that it was, therefore, available as a place to hide or crash when he wasn’t around, and hadn’t thought to share that insight, but it was a fleeting thought. It was hard to be angry at the boy, so thoroughly destroyed as he was. In the subdued light of the pool house, without any words between them, Justin realised that, in the space of a few days and without any of the power or influence of Bryce, the other boy had protected him from going hungry, from being alone, from sleeping rough, from coming to harm at the hands of his own father, or at the whim of the sheriff’s department. It hadn’t been perfectly executed or even particularly thoughtful, but he had done it, and he hadn’t expected Justin to give anything in return. 

Sometimes, it seemed like there was little more to Monty than rage and violence. Like they took up so much space and power that he didn’t have any room left for anything else. For a time, Justin had envied him that – it had seemed as though the other boy had no use for guilt or fear or jealousy or regret, each one burned up by the constant fury that simmered behind every expression, if he was ever compelled to feel them at all. Now, he realised that wasn’t quite true. Perhaps Monty didn’t feel those things as intensely or personally as Justin did, but the rage wasn’t as uncomplicated or deeply rooted as it had seemed. Despite that it seemed base and brutish on the surface, it was carefully crafted and maintained with practice and dedication. It was a mask, like any other. A foil for his own charming, dimpled grin, and the vast, fathomless shadow that he hid behind it. 

Monty leaned forward to read a push notification that brightened the screen of his mobile phone and, with his head down and the injuries to his face shadowed, he almost looked normal. Justin realised that he had never truly seen the other boy this way – without all of his anger and menace as armour. Justin hadn’t realised just how far beneath the surface of what people perceived Monty to be the boy actually was.

But it was dangerous to think like that. They both knew where they belonged, and who they belonged to.

It was too late to change that now.

Monty swiped away the push notification and sat back, elbows propped on his knees and game controller dangling from one hand. Without looking at Justin and quite plainly, he asked,

“Are we friends?”

After a moment’s pause, Justin shook his head, not in answer, but in despair of one.

“I don’t know, man,” he said, tapping through the navigation to select his avatar. “I don’t know if we can be.”

Monty glanced sidelong at him from behind his glasses, then looked down at his hands, something unreadable flashing across his expression but gone before Justin could identify it.

“Yeah,” the other boy said. “Me, either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's it :)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and commenting. I hope that you enjoyed the story and would love to hear what you thought. 
> 
> My heartfelt thanks to beekitties for being such an amazing, thoughtful and dedicated beta and Justin Foley expert advisor, as always!
> 
> I've got another couple coming up:  
\- **the Clubhouse**, currently in beta checking, a one-shot that will revisit these two boys and act as a connection from Joyride through to the next fic,  
\- **Dizzy**, a multi-part series of interconnected one-shots, currently in planning, although the first two parts are in beta checking.
> 
> I'm really looking forward to hearing what you think :)


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